The Product of His or Hers?
by Red Dame
Summary: Liadain is a fox hanyou. The fox demon population is depleting so the single males are to find the females. She's sought by two of them and turns to Sesshomaru for safety. It may be or may not be SesshXOC... I don't know it depends on direction of story.
1. Chapter 1

I don't own any Inuyasha characters or anything Inuyasha related except Liadain (fox hanyou) and other characters.

**SUMMARY: **Liadain is a fox hanyou and like any hanyou she isn't easily accepted as part of any community. She lives in a populous town where most civilians are humans. The fox demon population is depleting so the single males are ordered to go out and find fox females. Two fox demons seem to be after her and somehow Sesshomaru runs into her and she seeks safety with him.

**NARRATOR'S POV**

A fox hanyou wanders into a field of flowers far away from a town she resides in. She has no animal ears or tail although she has black claws. Her height is of the average woman, her long, straight hair is a reddish rusty brown color. Her eyes are colored red-orange. She looks mostly human except the inner lids of her eyes are heavily black similar to the canine species. She wears a dark green kimono with yellow-green vines and leaves decorating the sleeves and the bottom of the kimono.

Currently she quietly walks through a small field of wild flowers. The time of season is Spring, but there is still evidence of winter with the remains of ice. The morning is crisp causing Liadain to rub her arms against the chilly air that lingers. She observes her surroundings and tries to concentrate to feel any youkais near by. After a while she decides it's safe to let her guard down in the meantime.

She lies down near the small patch of flowers enjoying the quiet morning. She turns on her side admiring the different colors of the flowers. Reaching out she pulls one up and touches the soft petals of the yellow flower. She twirls the flower in between her black clawed fingers. She hears a rustling noise in the nearby forest. Quickly getting up she runs in the opposite direction to hide behind a tree to see what creature would come out.

"Lord Sesshomaru. Must we go visit that girl again so soon my lord?"

"Quiet Jaken."

"B-but milord!"

Bonk!

"Ahh! F-forgive me Lord Sesshomaru!"

Liadain's eyes widen seeing the silver haired demon. The two are a good distance from her but she was able to hear nonetheless. She thought about the name that was just spoken.

"Sesshomaru… I've heard of that name."

She contemplated why and where has she heard of that name. Unable to remember she gave up and continued to observe from behind the tree. He stood tall and proud. The green imp-like creature continues spitting out apologies to the silver-haired demon. She could feel the proud daiyoukai's powerful aura.

Not wanting to stay any longer she turns away from the scene and walks quickly and quietly deciding to go back to the town. Her town is located close to nearby mountains that have a dense population of ten thousand. She reaches the entrance and one guard already comes forward.

"State your business here."

"Do we have to do this?" Was her response. She gave him an annoyed look. He was a new guard. He was tall, slightly tanned, with black hair and eyes.

"State your business."

The guard ignored her response and looked at her. His eyes wandered past down her face for a few seconds. Unsure what to make of her unusual appearance he decided she wasn't completely human.

"It's simple, I'm just returning home from picking a flower."

She held up her flower to show proof. He clearly saw her black pointy claws which had him think whether she was possibly royalty. The women of royalty could afford the luxury of growing their nails and staining them, but that wasn't the case here. She did not wear her hair in any fancy form, her kimono was made of cheap material, and she looked a little plain besides her unusual colors. Liadain ignored his open stare and looked behind him and saw the other guard who would recognize her, but he was busy flirting with a woman.

"I've never seen you here-"

"Of course not, you're new to your duty or you're new to this post. If you ask that man over there he can confirm for me."

He was a little angry for her interruption but considered what she said.

"Follow me."

She trailed behind him until they reached the guard who was currently distracted.

"Taka!"

The guard stopped talking to the woman in front of him and looked at his partner in annoyance.

"What?"

"First off you're not on task and secondly confirm who this woman is… or whatever she is."

Taka ignored his comment and looked behind his partner to see Liadain bowing and greeting him.

"Oh! Yeah she's a resident here. She can pass. We should inform all who live here the new rule that's enforced. Everyone needs documents to prove they live here."

Liadain looked at Taka and shook her head at him for his flirting. He had a handsome face with a strong jaw and a physically fit body. His medium length hair was tied back and his dark eyes gleamed at her. He laughed at her expression. He looked back to see the woman was gone. He returned his attention to Liadain.

"How did you enjoy your morning walk?"

"Oh it was fine thank you for asking, but I'm not going to stay around for small talk."

She bowed to him once more and started to go into the town. She paused before going further.

"Oh… thank you Taka for not giving me a hard time."

"Anything for the pretty fox lady."

She laughed at him knowing not to believe his words.

"Right, how many women do you say that to? Well, thank you again."

He gave her a cheeky smile and a bow as she turned away to head home. She quickly makes her way through the crowds of people. Everyone is preparing for the cherry blossom festival that lasts all season. The town is known for a variety of goods and textiles which means it attracts crowds of people and occasionally demons from different places.

"Liadain!"

She started to walk much faster knowing exactly who called for her.

"Oh no. Not today."

She groaned internally feeling annoyed.

"Wait! Lia-"

She broke into an inhuman speed of a sprint all the way home losing the person that called for her. She made it to her small home made of wood which was in the outskirts of the town away from the bustle of people. Here she could always enjoy her peace.

Releasing a grateful sigh she flopped onto her futon enjoying the moment. The wind chimes outside of her door sound off indicating a slight breeze passing by. Feeling something in her hand she looked down to see her flower in a crumpled state.

"You poor flower…" She said quietly to no one.

She heard feet coming closer to her house. She got up quickly and opened the door to see a woman breathing heavily. Liadian quickly went to her seeing that the woman was still at a distance.

"Emi!"

Emi stopped her pace looking irritated at Liadain. She wore a black kimono with pink floral covering the kimono. The woman tried catching her breath before trying to speak.

"You… 'huff' did you forget?"

The reddish haired hanyou stood there trying to think what in the world could she be talking about. Then it clicked as if it couldn't be more obvious by the crowds of people.

"Oh! I'm so sorry Emi I forgot all about that! Forgive me!"

She took the dark haired woman by the arm and swung her over her shoulder and sped back to her house.

"Waoh! Liadian you know this isn't very lady like of you to do."

She ignored her already stepping into the house and placed her softly onto the floor and came back to offer her something to drink.

"Oh thank you. Although you do have the gentle touch."

"I suppose. I really like your black kimono by the way. It looks elegant."

"Thanks! You have to be careful when you do things like that. Speeding so fast and all."

Lidain took her seat across from her sharing the little table that sat in the middle of the space.

"I know but I felt bad for not helping you out at your shop."

"Well it's still early and I'm not done so I figure you'd help me sell my stuff as well. You can sell your accessories, and utensils. Remember I mentioned it."

"Yes, I remember. How do you feel now?"

"I'm fine really. I was just out of breath nothing life threatening."

Emi looked at the fox hanyou. They've known each other since childhood. Emi was Liadain's only friend as the majority of the community continues to dislike her existence or ignore her.

"I don't know Emi… I feel like I'll just be bad for your business."

"No! You will be just fine. Remember there were only a few times that happened. Plus if demons who stop by get out of hand I know you're there to protect me."

"If the demon is too strong I won't be able to help you much."

"I feel safer with you around."

The fox simply shrugged her shoulders not knowing well else to say on the subject matter.

"Come on. Grab your stuff and lets go."

After a couple of minutes Liadain returns with a sack full of her handmade things. She picked up Emi over her shoulders and quickly covered some distance to advance in time. They arrived at a good enough distance where they wouldn't be seen. Walking side by side Emi talks about her current loved one which fascinates Liadain for she never had a love life.

When Emi first told her about it she felt a pang of jealousy but immediately got over it feeling happy for her friend. At first it sounded like something from a fairy tale but then reality kicks in, and it's like any other relationship with its ups and downs.

Liadain met him a few times. She agrees that the man is a strong handsome fellow but she already knew his dislike for her. She wasn't surprised really and she warned Emi he won't like her or the idea of befriending someone like her.

"Is he also going to help you out?"

"Yeah but that's later in the afternoon. By then you don't have to stick around if you don't want to."

"I don't plan on it. I'll leave you two love birds alone."

Emi started giggling and Liadain rolled her eyes at her. They arrived at the shop and started to set up. The two worked quietly. After an hour they got everything together.

"Hey. Could you do my hair? You can put in one of your hair decorations in it so that way I could advertise it for you. Like last year."

"Oh, okay."

Emi sat down on a stool and Liadain stood behind her admiring her friend's long thick black hair. Grabbing the brush that was handed to her she started to gently brush it and part it. She held pins in her mouth working skillfully in styling the hair.

"I love your hair Emi."

Grabbing a pin from her mouth she placed it into her friends hair.

"You know… I think you should buy yourself some better kimonos."

"Hm? What for?"

"Well you know… to get yourself a man or something."

"Hah! Yeah right. Who in their right mind would want a halfling like me. I'm a miserable existence. I'm bad luck I guess."

"You need to get out of this town and go see the world. You haven't been far away to meet other people or demons."

"When have you seen a demon be kind to me? Humans are mostly afraid of me after discovering what I am."

"Well this town is just getting use to the idea of you."

"Yeah look how long that took."

Emi sighed feeling she was just making her friend depressed. She felt the gentle care her friend was treating her hair.

"I wish I knew what my biological parents were thinking. The only thing I last remember when I was little was seeing my human mother and my fox demon father talking to each other in worry. It was raining too."

"Your foster parents said you came from a very far away land. They couldn't read the language that the letter was written in when they found you. Only your name's pronunciation was written in Japanese."

"They were very old when they found me. My adoptive parents. I miss them too much."

Liadain's shoulders slumped forward.

"Okay, enough of this. Let's talk about something else."

"You should get bangs."

"What. Like everyone else? I got tired of dying my hair black. I already look different and I don't plan on trying to fit in anymore. I can't pull them off anyways."

"Yeah you're right."

"Okay I'm done with your hair. See what you think."

She took the mirror into her hand and admired her friends work.

"As always you're a magnificent stylist. Your hair accessories are the best in my opinion. Which is strange from you being kind of unlady like and what not."

"If I don't feel like fixing up myself I won't."

"Yeah well-"

"Hello ladies."

They turned their attention to the masculine voice. Emi brightened up seeing who it was. She stood up and bowed to him. Liadain gave a slight bow not caring.

"Kado! You're here earlier than expected."

He gave her a quick kiss on her lips causing the fox to turn away from the scene.

"I couldn't wait. I had to come see you."

Liadain cleared her throat to get Emi's attention.

"Should I leave now?"

"Oh no please stay."

"Well he's here and I doubt there would be any danger. It looks peaceful so far."

Emi started to pout not wanting her friend to leave.

"Then stay until the sun starts to set."

"That's a lot of hours Emi. I can already see people giving me weird looks. I'm telling you I'm bad for your business. I can leave my items here with you."

Emi went to her friend and held her clawed hands.

"I really want you here. You're not going to hide away from everybody like you normally do."

Looking into her friend's pleading eyes she gave in.

"Fine, but don't expect me to greet the customers in a happy mood."

"That's fine. I can take care of that."

She hugged Liadain and she returned the gesture patting her back awkwardly. Emi looked at Kado waving her hand for him to come over. He shook his head no, but Emi convinced him otherwise.

It's now noon as the sun is shining high in the sky. A steady flow of customers go to Emi's shop despite Lidain's presence. The hanyou stood there slightly bored unwilling to speak to these people. Her friend received many compliments for the hair style and accessories. Emi tried to introduce the hairstylist to the customers but they looked weary to greet her. Her unfriendly face didn't make it any better.

"There you are!"

Lidain was bored no longer. Her face was replaced with an annoyed expression.

"What do you want? Go away."

Irritation was clear in her voice. Her face was even more unfriendly towards the man. Emi looked at her in confusion. She's never seen anyone approach her friend willingly. She looked back at the man observing his fearless face. His handsome face was slim, black hair reaching his mid-back but tied, and his light grey eyes was a rare sight. He wore a dark blue kimono made of silk. The sleeves ended in white single bands.

"I saw you earlier this morning and I tried calling for you, but you seemed rushed. I would like for you to have lunch with me today."

He gracefully held out his hand for her to take. She crossed her arms and bared her fangs at him.

"No."

He walked closer to her but Emi stood in the way. She didn't know what was going on, but she wasn't going to allow her friend to be made a fool or be played with.

"Leave her be."

He withdrew his hand annoyed with this.

"I'm asking her sincerely." He said smoothly.

Kado pulled Emi away from the grey eyed man telling her that Liadain is more than capable of taking care of herself. She knew that but she couldn't help herself.

"It's okay Emi. I will go talk to him privately. He's a attracting a bit of a crowd anyways."

Liadain saw women gawking and admiring him.

"Lets go somewhere away from town. I want to be clear that this is not me accepting your invite."

"That's fine."

He smiled at her. She did not react to it.

'He does have a nice smile. Stupid human…'

They walked in silence into a nearby forest. The man reaches for her shoulder but the fox is quick to slap it away. She stops and faces him with crossed arms. His eyes examine her outward appearance. Her hair was slightly messy, wearing a kimono one size too big that hid her figure, but he could tell she wasn't petite and slim as most women in the town. She gave him a face of disapproval.

"Stop staring human." She growled at him.

"You are a sight to behold."

"Oh please. Stop making a fool of me."

"I speak the truth."

"I don't believe you. Almost everyone in town gives me the evil eye. Hardly any are kind to me and I don't expect it anytime soon either. If you are truly sincere then you like any other male is just looking for what a woman can offer you." She spoke in anger and bitterness.

"If you can't tell you stupid human I'm not even all that human."

"I know you're not and to clarify I'm not seeking you out for what you can offer me. I would like to get to know you."

"You are a fool because you don't know what you're getting yourself into."

"Then a fool I am."

He walked closer to her and quickly grabbed her hand but she snatched it back and accidentally scratched him. He hissed at the pain seeing blood drip but quickly got over it as he shook out his hand. She grabbed a cloth within her sleeves and grabbed his hand. She was quick and nibble to mend his hand. He was pleasantly surprised. She ignored his obvious smile.

"Come on I can hear a river near by."

They arrived to the flowing stream and he took the cloth off and washed his hand in the icy river. She stood near by quietly watching him. After he was done he started to wrap the wound with the same cloth, but to his surprise again she grabbed out another clean cloth and mended his hand again.

After she finished he grabbed for her hands again, but this time she tried to retrieve them carefully avoiding another wound. He held them tighter and brought them to his warm lips. She gasped in surprise feeling hot in the face. Her red-orange eyes widened and her heart pounded unable to recover and he saw this as an opportunity to maybe kiss her mouth. He stood straight and aimed for her lips but instead he got kneed in the gut never making it to the soft looking lips.

Gasping for air he quickly recovered and saw that she was walking away angrily. He figured he deserved that. He wasn't about to let her go just yet. He had been perusing her for one week straight.

"Liadain I apologize for being so forward. Liadain!"

He ran after her and caught up to her as she continued her same pace. He grabbed her arm but she viciously jerked it away. He could feel her anger radiate off of her. He grabbed her shoulder roughly turning her around.

"What!"

He held up his hands showing he meant no harm.

"I am truly sorry for being so forward. I couldn't help being so drawn to you."

She bared her fangs at him in anger.

"I knew underneath your façade you are different and I want to know you even more so. Give me a chance for I promise not to break your heart."

"Humans always make false promises."

"You shouldn't generalize all humans that way."

"Yeah like humans don't generalize either."

He sighed. Then he realized something.

"Where have my manners gone. I never told you my name since I know yours."

"I don't care for your name. We won't see each other again and I will make sure of that."

"Don't be that way. My name is Yukio."

"I don't care and I'll be whatever way I want to be."

"I understand you've been hurt."

"You know nothing. You and your human kind know nothing! Only one may truly have compassion for me but that's it." She spoke darkly to him.

"And what of your fellow demons. How do they differ? Do you think you would be better off with them? Do you think the fox youkais would welcome you?"

"My run in with demons was not so kind either. They would probably enslave me, eat me, or worse. It's all the same really."

"There you go generalizing again."

"What do you know…"

She started to walk away not wanting to continue this conversation. Yukio stood there watching her figure going farther and farther away. She felt something tackle her hard to the ground knocking out her breath. She coughed out in surprise by the force. She struggled to get out of the heavy creatures grasp. She turned to see it looked primarily human with pointy ears but the male smelled like a full demon. He had red hair, blue eyes, and a tail tipped in black.

She struggled more and she felt his aura was stronger than hers. She could feel her heart beat in fear. The fox demon held her tighter to the ground and his face closed in on hers. She turned her face away feeling his breath. She could hear him take in her scent. This confused her greatly unsure of what's going on.

"I like your smell." He purred then he licked her neck. She freaked out and she struggled again frantically. He growled slightly pulling her kimono to reveal her shoulder. His fangs sharply bit into her shoulder to keep her still. He did not want to further damage her.

She yelped at the pain feeling that he struck a nerve causing her to feel paralyzed. He gathered her in his arms running deep into the forest. Yukio is not far behind as he transforms into his true appearance. His black hair grows longer and is streaked in silver accompanied by a tail with pointy ears.

Yukio stretches out his arm and quickly shoots fire at him, but the red fox avoids it and goes at a faster speed. An ogre shoots out in front of Yukio and he fights it swinging once, twice and the third one finishes off the ogre. Yukio settles to the ground sniffing the air and hearing any signs. He lost them. He transformed into his human disguise and headed back to town to reveal the news to Emi.

Meanwhile the red fox makes it to a safe spot clear from danger. He looks down to the hanyou that looks passed out. Seeing a tree he leans her against it and steps back taking a better look. He crouched beside her.

"Not bad looking for a hanyou. Can't be picky now can we."

She started to groan in pain. He sat down watching her come back consciously. Her eyes shot open and she quickly looked around and noticed someone was beside her. She looked at him and glared.

"What do you want with me? Why'd you kidnap me!"

"It's simple really. Help repopulate our dying breed."

It took her a second to take in what he said.

"What?"

"Yes, but no worries I don't plan on rushing into that just yet."

He saw her nervousness and gave her a throaty laugh. She turned red. She turned around away from him holding onto the tree she started to crawl away. She still felt weak. He laughed at her finding her strangely amusing. She decided to sit back down instead of further humiliating herself.

"You're the closest thing to a fox demon that I could find in a month. Searching out for you females has become a dangerous task."

She examined him. He wore the traditional clothing of a warrior which was colored in black making his long wild red hair color stand out more. He wore his sword at his side as kept his one hand loosely near it. She saw that his shirt was opened a bit revealing that he was a muscular build. She quickly looked away.

"So what do you think?"

She looked at him, but this time at his blue eyes.

He came closer and she scooted back.

"I'm a great catch ey?"

She scowled at him making him laugh.

"Don't be shy. Someday you'll be able to touch all of this."

He grabbed her hand and placed it on his chest. She tried pulling her hand away but his grip was like iron. He smirked at her and let her hand go. He saw her hand swing aiming to slap him but he caught it in time. He tackled her to the ground straddling her.

"Get off!"

"I do as I want."

"Get off!"

"You apparently have bad hearing."

He flashed his fangs at her then licked her cheek making her scream in anger.

"Let me go now!"

"There's nothing you can do wench."

"I have a name you idiot!"

"Watch what you say because I can dispose of you anytime I'd like."

"Doesn't sound like you afford that if you want the breed to survive."

He bared his teeth in irritation for she was right. He slowly got off of her and stood up. He held out a hand to help her up but she refused. He sighed knowing she was going to struggle. After a while she gave in and reluctantly took his hand helping her stand up.

"How about we start over. I'm Aeden."

"You kidnapped me."

He gave her the 'oh well' look.

"It's your turn."

He looked down at her noticing she held onto her the shoulder he bit. 'She must be sore.'

"Your name miss?"

She reluctantly gave in seeing no real danger in giving her name.

"My name is Liadain."

"Strange name."

She paid no mind to his comment. She saw how much taller he was compared to her. Her head reached to his chest.

"Can you take me home?"

"No."

"You don't plan on letting me go until I fulfill a duty that I am not aware of. Is that what it is?"

"Something like that. You plan on escaping?"

"Yes." She said bluntly, avoiding to look at his face she faces off to the side.

"We'll see."

He eyed her mischievously.

"I propose an idea."

His clawed hand grabbed her face turning it towards him.

"How about we get straight to business and I let you go, but the only problem is that we he have to be frequent with each other in order to get you successfully pregnant."

Her blood boiled feeling humiliated to have this conversation. She slapped away his hand and stomped away from him. She didn't recognize where she was but that didn't stop her from breaking into a run.

She could hear his feet run after her and his deep laughter.

'I'm just making this more fun for him! Crazy demon!'

She felt herself stumbling over but caught herself in time. She got rid of her sandals and ran in her perfectly good socks. She quickly looked back seeing he was within arm reach. Snapping to face forward again she ran faster pounding her feet against the earth and ignoring the sharp rocks digging into her.

Her shins and thighs start to burn for she's never had to run so fast in her life. The rate of speed picked up wind in her long hair. Aeden saw this as an advantage and he grabbed the ends of her hair and gripped it pulling her to a harsh stop.

The halt caused her head to sharply jerk back interfering with her breathing passage in her bent neck. She wailed a gurgling scream as tears formed at the corners of her eyes. Her body slammed into the ground causing more air to escape her lungs and arching her back in pain.

Doing her best to regain air she painfully rolled over to the side coughing and gasping. She heard his cruel laughter. He crouched in front of her.

"One thing to know about us foxes… we love trickery and games."

His hand grazed her cheek moving her hair out of her face. She aimed to remove his hand, but he quickly retrieved it.

"Feisty!"

She closed her eyes leaning her forehead against the ground breathing heavily. Aeden rolled her over straddling her and started to undo her kimono. She looked back at him with weak eyes. Her strength was waning but she would attempt one last escape.

Her hand trembled as it moved to his face. He stopped his further attempt to undress her and watched her suspiciously. Seeing she was in a weakened state he allowed her touch. She looked into his blue eyes and she softly outlined his jaw line.

Unsure of this new development he saw her trying to sit up, but he kept his straddled position over her. She leaned on her one arm trembling and continued touching his face.

Judging by the look in his face he's starting to let his guard down.

Her claws grazed his neck and she swiftly dug them into his jugular vein taking him by surprise as he hissed in pain. Not a second later she quickly reacted by sharply elbowing him in the face causing a cut on his cheek. She pushed him off as he was stunned and she ran for it.

She put in all she had into this run but this time she made sure to grab her hair. She could feel his fury making her panic even more. Her heart pumped wildly. A blur of black appeared in front of her making her dig her heels to stop and turn around only to meet his infuriated blue eyes.

"You… " His voice was very dark.

His hand grabbed her neck sinking his own claws into her skin. Slowly he made her feel all the pain he could. She screamed miserably scratching against his hand. She went for his face but he held onto her two hands with his free one. He squeezed them mercilessly.

"How do you like the feel of that?" He seethed at her baring his fangs close to her face. The pain made her angry and scared.

'This is it… I'm going to die!'

Suddenly she felt his grip loosen extracting his claws and she dropped to the ground. Her body trembled as she dug into her sleeves quickly pulling out bandages. Blood was squirting out. She felt very dizzy and in immense pain as she was losing a lot of blood. Aeden's wounds were already healing. He saw her body go limp and pass out.

"So troublesome this female." He grumbled.

He sighed looking down at his bloody claws. He picked her up and headed to a healer that he knew of who lived close by.

**A/N: **I apologize if this was painfully boring I hope this story comes along. If you click on my 'author's name' you can see what her character looks like. It was a quick drawing of her which is close to what she looks like but not quite the image I have in my head. She looks kinda scary lol which was not the look I was going for. The eyes are not quite right.

Sesshomaru will have more involvement. I don't know if I want this to be SessXOC.

Soon I will have deviant art where you could see more drawings which is where my homepage will link to. If you're interested.


	2. Chapter 2

**Reviews are very very very appreciated! **

The fox youkai Aeden had left Liadain in the care of another youkai of his kind. The healer and his mate were the only ones who lived in the house. The couple asked her what was her relationship with the prince. Apparently he hadn't said much to them and she was surprised to hear he was a prince.

'He probably left to go find another one to kidnap.' Was her thought.

She sat outside leaning against the house that the healer lives in. Her legs stretched out before her as she touches the patches of grass nearby. It has been two days of her recovery and she's almost fully healed. She wore a pale pink cotton kimono which was in much better condition than her green one.

She unconsciously touched her bandaged neck. A cool breeze blew by and she closed her eyes enjoying the peace. The smell of the forest passes her nose and the sound of birds chirping in nearby trees put her in a better mood.

"I missed you." Was whispered close to her face.

Out of surprise she knocked her head against the wooden house and she looked to her right. She rubbed her head looking at him angrily for whispering into her ear unaware. She pushed him away with one arm knocking him back to a sitting position. He laughed enjoying her surprise and anger. She was still held a bit of a grudge against him because he injured her neck, but she understood she was the one who attacked first. In her defense of course.

"What do you want?" She spat at him annoyed.

"Don't tell me you didn't miss me?" He teased.

"Of course not."

She got up fast and briskly walked into the house getting away from him even if it was only for a second or two. Not far behind he quietly followed behind her having nothing else better to do with his time. She poured herself tea from the kitchen area and went to the living room to see him sitting down watching her.

"What?" She watched him suspiciously.

"Nothing." He smirked.

'The color suits her and she looks less tattered in this kimono.' Other thoughts crossed his mind as he looked at her.

She sat in the farthest corner of the house away from him. After a couple of sips of tea she decided to break the silence and stop with the annoying staring.

"I found out you're a prince. I would have never guessed."

"Really now? Does this mean you're more interested in me?"

"No. I wouldn't want to be with you even if you were my only option."

His smirk never deterred.

"When the time comes you won't have a choice."

She shivered in fear for when the day does come if she unsuccessfully escapes. She starts to wonder what was keeping him from doing something about it already. Nevertheless, she was more than grateful he was in no hurry.

"Where have they gone?" He interrupted her thoughts seeing that she seemed to be contemplating about something bothersome.

"Who? Oh… they went to re-supply their medicines. They never mentioned when they'd return."

"I can't believe they trusted you here alone."

"Not really."

She set her tea down and showed her wrist that had a blue beaded bracelet.

"And what does that do?"

"There's no way I'm telling you."

She grabbed her tea and stood up now walking to the guest room where she spent most of her time sleeping. She closed the sliding door behind her and sat on her futon drinking the rest of her tea. Aeden remained in the same spot where she left him. He has good hearing and he could hear her mumbling at this very moment.

"Stupid prince…"

'Hm, so she's thinking about me. This should be fun.'

He now stood in front of the guest room door and slid it open to see her giving him an annoyed look. He noticed she took off her bandages and there was no scar to be seen on her neck. He leaned against the doorway looking smug and mighty confident. Her eyes carefully watched him in question.

'What is this fox up to?'

She had her guard up ready for anything he may do to her. She noticed his eyes narrowed sharply at her but the look had a mischievous feel to it.

"It looks like you're ready for me. The house residents are gone and we are the only ones here. I think we should take advantage of this opportune moment. What do you think Liadain? I get the feeling they won't be back for another day."

Her eyes widen at him and her heart started to beat faster. She set her empty cup beside her hiding it next to her leg. He watched her carefully knowing he has her on alert. He walked slowly to her making her feel anxious in fear. He sat in front of her so they were at eye level.

"You should leave now _prince_." She said his title sarcastically, but this bothered him none.

"You're just a hanyou with no manners. I feel like I should instruct you properly on your lack of manners."

He leaned forward closely to her face. She found this closeness very uncomfortable as she did her best to avoid looking directly at his face. His eyes never left her face and he leaned in more to test a reaction. He looked at her lips as she backed away until she touched the wall. Angling his face he adjusted it to hers and his lips barely brushed them. She immediately pushed him away with one arm, but he did not budge and grabbed a hold of the held out arm. He breathed in her scent and whispered against her face which irritated her that he would continue to invade her personal space.

"You smell nice... And in good health."

She noticed his voice sounded deeper. His hands went to her shoulders and he quickly pinned her down onto the futon. She started to panic and transformed her teacup into a knife and she aimed for his heart. Her attempt failed and all she did was scratch him and get him angry. He threw the knife against the wall and it shattered revealing it was a teacup.

"I see you know some of our youkia's magic tricks."

He adjusted his body over her and sat on her lower region to station her. He grabbed both of her arms placing them up over her head, and she suddenly felt something heavy weighed them down. He quickly undressed the top part of his body as she looked away in panic. She struggled as she tried to pull herself free, but the unknown objects continue to keep her hands down.

"Please… don't do this." She squeezed her eyes shut feeling her heart pounding against her rib cage.

"Ha ha ha well it looks very unfortunate for you I'm afraid."

His voice sounded very off like in a different direction. She opened her eyes to see him give her a toothy grin, and again she could hear him speak but this time his mouth was not moving.

"Look to your left."

She does just that and sees another Aedan against the wall, but this one was fully clothed. Then it clicks that the one that's holding her down is a replica of himself. She looked back to see no one was in front of her and looked back again at the real Aedan. She felt foolish, angry, and humiliated again since she's been kidnapped.

She was mainly furious for being scared senseless when it was all just an illusion. The weights on her hands were gone and she can finally feel again. Without another second to lose she gets up to her feet and runs out of the house to get away from him.

Seething in so much anger she couldn't hear Aedan call after her. Liadain was lost in her thoughts as she walked fast and clenching her claws into her hands drawing blood. She disappeared into the forest with Aedan not far behind her amused by her fury.

'How could I have not known! The fake him didn't even feel alive. Arrrgggg!'

She kept going straight through the forest with no real direction as she looks at the ground irritated. Her fists clench tighter unaware of the damage her hand has taken.

'This idiot of a prince! May he go to hell and burn there forever! Oh how I love to see him-'

"Oof!" She stumbled into something and once she got her footing back she saw it was him again. She backed off immediately giving him a hard glare.

"Get out of my sight." She muttered darkly. She went around him only to run into him again. Aedan looked at her with an expressionless face only watching her. He sniffed the air smelling blood. As she was about to walk around him, he grabbed her arms positioning them in front her face for her to see them. She was about to retort but she saw her bloody hands.

Her claws were dug into her palms and she pulled them out fast in a panic. She felt the realization of pain. A small gasp escaped as she did her best not to show weakness in front of Aedan, but he could sense her pain. Her hands were trembling and she noticed they were closer to his face than hers.

Her fingers spread out from each other as she straightened them out. She moved them towards his face. Aedan slightly backed away but she continued forward until she touched his face. She smears his cheeks with her bloody hands. Her face no longer contained her glare, rather it's a strangely calm expression. He didn't quite understand what she was doing.

She smeared her bloody hands more roughly against his face. Aedan saw and felt that her anger was rising again. He pulled her hands away from his now bloody face.

"What is the matter?" He questioned.

"Ha ha ha ha. Matter? No matter really." Her voice sounded like she was about to crack. He realized his teasing was a little overdone and she took it to heart.

"I want to rip the flesh off of your face Prince Aedan!"

As he still held her hands he saw her fingers pointing directly at him. It was all the defense she knew of when she was in danger and rarely does her powers kick in. He decided to move the hands further away from his face.

"We need to get you back to the house. Once the healers return they can better mend your wounds."

She jerked her hands away from him. "Stay the hell away from me!" She walked away from him heading back to the wooden house as Aedan kept his distance from her. He watched her walk away in a fiery anger and changed into a lifeless slow pace of a walk. She was lost in her thoughts again feeling slightly overwhelmed.

'I don't think I can escape this… I don't think I can get away.'

Her fingers felt cold as blood slowly dripped down. She looks at her hands wondering how she is so unfortunate to be in the situation she is in now. She searched through her sleeves for bandages and wraps up her hands to stop the bleeding. Aedan by this time wipes the blood off of his face with his sleeves. He suddenly picks up a sound in the distance and it was coming very fast.

'It must be him.'

Aedan runs up behind Liadain knowing she would put up a fight, but he will tolerate it just to get her away from the incoming presence. He picked her up placing her over his shoulder and she was already kicking and yelling furiously.

"Don't touch me you inconsiderate youkai!"

"PUT me DOWN!"

She wanted to claw his back but her hands felt so weak and useless.

"I hope you burn in hell!"

She continued with her tantrum as he speeded away from the presence that was catching up at an alarming rate. Liadain now felt the aura and she seemed to understand why he is speeding so fast. She decided to rub his ego the wrong way.

"Prince! Aren't you strong enough to fight this one on?"

"If I can avoid unnecessary conflict I will do just that."

"You're a coward! Here I thought you were very strong. I'm afraid this aura is a lot stronger than yours!"

"Hah! I'm not falling for that one. You're not a very good at deceit or trickery Liadain. You shame your youkai side."

'Here I thought me being a hanyou would disgust you already.'

It was apparent to Liadain that Aedan considered her an important vessel to repopulate their species which she could care less about. She cocked her head to see if she could make out the being, but saw nothing. A minute later she saw a blurry figure and she was surprised to see how fast this being caught up to them.

"You need to lose some weight Liadain."

"Your opinion falls on deaf ears!"

Aedan knew he could not run forever and so he put her down onto the forest floor and stood in front of her with his back to her. The blurry figure was now a clear image of a youkai who had black hair streaked in silver and steely grey eyes. Liadain recognized his features but then she saw it was none other than Yukio. She was fooled again for thinking he was human to begin with. She could not understand how out of tune she was towards her youkai side to not sense these things.

Yukio did not hold any kindness to his face as all of his attention was on Aedan. Without a word both youkais drew their swords and began to fight. She saw this as a glorious moment to escape to freedom. She scrambled up to her feet and ran as fast as her body allowed. As she gained distance the sound of youkai powers and swords clashing gradually became fainter.

She could no longer hear the sounds of their fight but she continued on. She felt her bracelet react to distance away from the wooden house. Ignoring the slight pain she continued on determined to be free no matter what. By this time she is feeling exhausted and hungry. Her feet started to drag against the dirt. The spring breeze blew by encouraging her to keep going.

'I can't give up.'

She felt her body in more pain but this wasn't stopping her. The pain was slowing her down and her hands felt even weaker. "That aura again. Looks like the prince lost." She felt her panic rise and she started to run again. To her unfortunate demise Yukio appeared in front of her.

"Liadain. Come with me."

He held out his hand to her. His clothing looked slightly burned along with dirt and blood throughout his appearance. She looked at him with a pained expression and she bent down onto her knees feeling the bracelet's power increasing and causing more pain. Yukio quickly came over to her picking her up in his strong arms.

"Liadian what's wrong?"

She held up her wrist and he examined it. He held the bracelet between his fingers and he concentrated to release it from her. After some time he finally broke its hold on Liadain and the gusts of wind settled down.

"T-thank you. Please don't take me away."

He looked down at her while still holding her up. He said nothing and this caused her to panic and she struggled out of his arms. He released her not wanting her to hurt herself. She stood away facing him.

"I know now why you pursued me in the first place. No, I won't go along with this. All of this makes sense now. No male of any kind would want a hanyou in the first place, but because of the situation you all are desperate for just any female of your species."

She looked off to the side now talking more to herself than to Yukio. "I've never had this happen to me. Hardly any man would bother to be with me." She was on her guard again.

"Yukio. Please don't do this. Don't force me into this absurdity."

He came closer to her noticing the pale pink kimono. He smiled outwardly and bent over to meet her red-orange eyes. She was hoping to convince him out of this mindset. His slender fingers slipped through her long hair. This action startled her as she was never treated this gently by another, unless it was Emi brushing her red-rust colored hair.

"I remain honest with what I've told you. Yes, I am doing part of my duty to find a female and repopulate."

She sighed exasperated at what he just said. She was starting to miss being that unapproachable person back at home. She truly missed Emi. Yukio spoke again.

"If I'm to do this I would like to know my mate to be and I wish for us to truly like each other and not out of a sense of duty."

The word mate sounded strange to her and he noticed her thinking about his words.

"So far I like what little I know of you Liadain."

'He has quite a way with words, but I'm not falling for it.'

"I just want to go home back to Emi."

"I can take you home."

"Really! Oh… Truly I thank you! I-"

He held up a hand to quiet her. She felt it was bad news already and her heart sank.

"I wanted to take you back home to see your Emi one last time."

"What? Don't do this… "

She turned around away from him feeling very heart broken. She didn't stand a chance against him. Another strong youkai.

"Curse my misfortune." She whispered.

She face him again but with a determined expression.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to make this a very miserable relationship for you."

He laughed at her.

"It won't be that easy. I have very cruel ways of convincing you."

"Well aren't you just another sadistic youkai. You youkai's are the worst!"

"You're telling me humans are a better option?"

"I said nothing of that."

"It's what you're implying isn't it?"

She heard his voice rise in anger. She figured him wrong for thinking he was kinder and more considerate than Aedan. She saw she was very wrong. Yukio sensed her fear and calmed his temper down.

"I apologize for my temper."

"I understand but you must know I'm not _even_ yours. I have not agreed to be with you."

"Not yet."

He smirked eyeing her body seeing that she did have a womanly figure. She felt flustered in embarrassment for possibly even considering her as attractive.

'This is another stupid youkai thinking that I have no say in this matter. I have my choice too! I was not bound to this and I have no loyalty to the foxes regardless of what runs through my blood.' She felt all the more annoyed with the situation.

"Beggars can't be choosers. Right? Sounds like Aedan would say that. What did you do to him?" Her voice was a little sad sounding.

"There is no need to be concerned over him."

"Did you… kill him?" She tried reading Yukio's expression but his face gave nothing away.

"Do you care for him?"

"Not really. I just don't want a cause of death to be because of me." Liadain was starting to feel a little sick to her stomach. She remained quiet.

Liadain looks into his silver eyes. She was unsure of how she would escape from him for she knew no one else would fight over her. She takes in a deep breath and exhales.

"Take me to Emi."

Yukio offered to carry her and she allowed him to do so. Holding her securely he sped off to their destination.

-Liadain's House-

"What?"

They all sat on the floor of Liadain's house discussing her situation. Emi looked at her childhood friend in disbelief. She was truly happy to see that Liadain was alive and well but unhappy of what she just finished hearing. Emi glared at Yukio who sat next to Liadain in his true form.

"I'm sorry Emi. I leave my house in your care."

"Are you forced into this? You're not obligated to be with him only because he saved you."

Emi spoke franticly as she gave Yukio the evil eye, but it fazed him none. Liadain sighed mentally and she masked her true emotions continuing to try to convince her friend she is fine with all of this. She made sure to not let Emi know about the true motives of her leaving just as Yukio warned her not to. Emi wasn't exactly buying it, and she knew human's had no real chance against Yukio.

"I feel truly grateful to him."

Liadain did her best to sound convincing. She didn't know if she should smile or something. She's never had a situation as this. She decided to have a calm face for the expression.

"Are you going to visit me again? See my children someday?"

"You're pregnant?" Liadain said in excitement, but she smelt nothing different about her friend.

"No, but I will someday with my future husband."

"He proposed to you?"

Emi smiled and nodded as she was just glowing in happiness. Liadain made her way to Emi holding her hands in delight and congratulating her. Yukio witnessed the two women chatting excitedly about the news. He could see Liadain was more human in her character. He cleared his throat getting their attention. Liadain went to take her place next to him again.

"Yes, she will visit you but not as often as you'd like her to." Yukio spoke clearly.

Liadain knew he was lying as she looked him wanting him to just tell her friend the truth and not give her false hope. She looked at her friend and tried to give a happy smile. Yukio decided this visit was long enough and they should leave already.

All three stood outside of Liadain's house. Liadain looked at Emi and gave her one last hug.

"Don't worry about me Emi. I give my service to him and he will protect me and give me shelter. I will miss you very much."

Emi hugged her childhood friend tighter.

"I hope to see you at my wedding in four months. You have to promise me you will."

All that Liadain could do was nod her head feeling heaviness in her heart. After a few more seconds she reluctantly let Emi go. A wave of sadness washed over Liadain as she walked behind Yukio. She looked back at her only friend trying to engrave her in her memory.

'I'll come back Emi. I'll escape and make it to your wedding and see your children grow.'

Emi stood there watching them disappear out of sight. A tear rolled down her cheek.

"You're hiding something from me Liadain…" She spoke quietly.

The two are currently outside of the town walking in a nearby forest. Yukio could feel Liadian's continued depressive mood. He felt a little irritated with her emotions, but he decided to ignore it. The passive action didn't last for long.

"Liadain. Stop with your grief."

She looked at him in surprise to hear his stated annoyance of her.

'Youkais. Usually cold, cruel, indifferent… but you, you're more like somewhere in between… Yukio. I liked you better when you acted human.'

They continued on in silence as Liadian did her best not to feel so sad, but for her not to be able to see Emi again was a loss for her. A great loss.

**A/N: I know Sesshomaru didn't make it on this one but definitely will happen soon. Story must move at a certain pace. **

**I thank everyone who reviewed and favored my story! MAKES me HAPPY and ENCOURAGED!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I hope everyone is enjoying this story so far!**

**REVIEW! Please… comments? Concerns?**

It's a foggy morning and the fox hanyou walks through the many halls of the castle that Yukio resided in. The castle didn't belong to him but he was considered an important nobleman of the household. The tribe of the black and silver haired foxes were located in the up most region of the mountains.

Liadain goes into a room and sees Yukio sitting there looking at rice papers with written items on it. She slides the door shut and walks away from the room not wanting to be around him. Liadain has been sick the past two weeks since she's been here. Her body has been trying to get use to the high altitudes and colder temperatures.

She walks outside where the patio is and sits down at the edge of it. She folds her arms looking out below her reminding her how high up this place was. The mountain view was a beautiful scene.

"Maybe I should jump off this mountain and gain my freedom that way." She thought gloomily. Her voice was a little raspy.

She heard fabric moving and she turned her head to see Yukio was now standing next to her. He wore a white silk fabric with black cranes decoration his clothing. Liadain wore a black silk kimono that had white lotus flowers decorated on it. She disliked what she was wearing, she complained that the silk fabric was a noisy material to be wearing.

She mentally sighed as she stood up and bowed her head to him. "Good morning Yukio-sama. How can I be of service to you today?" She sounded unenthusiastic as usual every time she had to greet him in a formal manner. She kept her eyes to the floor knowing this was respectable manners to those higher up in ranking. Because of her status and being hanyou, she was considered low ranking.

"I've told you before you can look at me." She shook her head no. Yukio reached for her face but she pulled back making him angry. "I don't want to be scolded again by how I'm suppose to treat you."

"I see. Well, I can take care of the problem-"

"That's not necessary. Really." He found her interruption a little irate.

"There's another way… Liadain." He spoke smoothly.

"No. I'd rather die than be your ma-."

She started coughing as she covered her mouth with her sleeve. She decided it was best to go back inside. She bowed her head excusing herself. Yukio and Liadain shared the same vicinity but slept in separate rooms where they were at a good distance from each other.

The hanyou had many nights where she had no sleep because she was afraid Yukio would come in one day and force himself onto her. The youkai has been respectful of her space so far and he's kept busy for most of the time. She's now laying on her futon deciding to get some rest.

A few hours pass by. She starts to regain consciousness from her deep sleep as she feels something shaking her and hears a voice. She blinks a couple of times and sees it's one of the many servants that woke her. Liadain sits up feeling groggy rubbing her eyes as she tries to focus.

"Hanyou, Yukio-sama wants your presence right now."

She sighs feeling exhausted from being woken up. Her heart races as it does its best to speed up. She could go back to sleep immediately if she laid back down. Her eyes feel heavy as they start to close while she sits there. The female servant shakes Liadain awake again.

"Yukio-sama will be very angry if you don't come to him soon."

Liadain nods her head and she gets up in standing position. Her breathing is heavy and labored. Her slightly messy long hair cascades around her face as she takes a couple of deep breaths trying to calm her heart. She starts to cough again.

She looked back at the servant wondering why Yukio didn't bother to claim one of them instead. The hanyou noticed the female servant who woke her was pregnant. About half of them were from what Liadain could tell. The males were more than double the amount of females.

The few number of females has not been without its problems. There has been rumors that some of them have been taken away from the other males in the middle of the night. These rumors just add to Liadain's sleepless nights, but according to Yukio no one would bother with her.

There sat Yukio watching her walk in quietly and sliding the door behind her. She sits on her knees deciding to stay close to the door just in case. She looks at the ground giving a bow in his direction, "How can I serve you today Yukio-sama?"

He sighed at this formality she's determined in keeping. "It seems to me you are not willing to be open with me." He watches her with his steely eyes which he knows she could feel them on her. She gives a slight shiver.

"I just want to go home. Please." She looked down at her sleeves and she started to fiddle with them.

"I'm afraid that wont be so soon."

Shaking her head in disappointment she had this sinking feeling it won't be for many, many years if she doesn't get out of here. She has been examining the areas throughout this castle and a little bit of the outskirts. There has been progress for an escape plan though it's not fool proof yet.

Yukio can feel the sadness that emanates from her. He finds her sometimes overbearing emotions slightly annoying. "While observing you, Liadain, you're not the usual fox female who would use her charm or sensuality to get her way. I'm sure you don't even know how or you are too shy for that."

She shifted her weight on her legs getting the urge to flee. She didn't like where he is leading with this. Clearing her throat a bit she decided to comment, "I think it's best if I didn't act so shameless. Why did you call for me? I feel so worn out I really would like to go back."

"And I would like for you to sit in front of me rather than being so far away." It was obvious he had no plans of letting her leave so soon. Giving a slight nod and keeping her eyes low she goes to sit in front of him. She makes sure to maintain a comfortable distance between each other.

The grey eyed youkai looks at her hands that rest on her knees as her fingers grip her knees in nervousness. "It looks like you're getting better." She was grateful he broke the silence but wasn't expecting that sort of question.

"Yes, I'm coughing less." She hears a rustling noise and she notices that he's getting up for some reason and walks away into a room. A minute later he comes back with a few things in his hand.

He returns to his sitting position in front of the hanyou then he places two items in front of her. The boxed items were wrapped up in fine cloth that gave off a gleam. One was the color of gold and the other of red. "What are these for?" She questioned with her raspy sounding voice.

"These are gifts for you but you only get to choose one. Lets play a game shall we?" Yukio grins toothily while moving his black tail in a sweeping motion. Liadain did not like the sound of that. Her head was still slightly bowed and only her eyes moved up to look at his face through her long red lashes.

Yes, he had a handsome face and body from what she could make of him. "I apologize but I refuse these gifts Yukio-sama." His face clearly showed disapproval of her response. She was not willing to receive anything from him knowing there may be some ulterior motive to it.

He glowers at her but stops. Instead he decides to grab her wrists and pulls her toward to him. She gasps in fright and struggles to free herself. "W-w-wwait! Stop!" Their struggle stops with her on top of him as Yukio holds tightly onto her arms pulling them out beside her.

'I bet it's some stupid trick to degrade me further!' Squeezing her eyes shut she concentrates to feel that this was an illusion. To her dismay it's no illusion. 'Oh god… why.' Her heart speeds rapidly and her adrenaline courses through her body. She feels him let go of her arms and his hands slide at the back of her neck and head. Her eyes open to see him give her a strange look.

She takes note that his hands are not tightly gripping her which she sees this as an opportunity to flee. The sound of a door sliding is heard and then a chortled cough is what catches their attention. A male fox who is a part of the military unit sees Liadain sprawled out on top of Yukio.

"Yukio-sama!"

Liadain is yanked off of Yukio and thrown across the room. "Yukio-sama. Are you alright? What trickery has this lowly hanyou done to you?"

Yukio is quick to grab the fox youkai by the throat as he sighs irritably. It seems as if everyone did not understand what the hanyou meant to him. He squeezes his throat, "Listen well soldier she is not to be treated that way again. If so I will have you killed and I do have convincing ways of getting it my way." He releases the confused soldier and stands up straight then bows.

"Sir, I came to report a battalion is coming our way and they do not come in peace. They are fox youkai's from the flaming red hair tribe."

"I figure they would eventually come. Gather all the women and children to a safe place and have a couple of guards to protect them. We will await for our lord's further instructions."

"Yes sir." The soldier looks at Liadain who now looks less disheveled. He nods towards her signaling for her to follow. She stands up and starts to walk to the soldier but Yukio stands in her way. "She stays with me." The warrior gives a quick bow and dismisses himself.

Yukio turns to face her, "Are you damaged?" She shakes her head no. "You can already guess what tribe he spoke about. They are taking revenge for Prince Aedan. Make no mistake in thinking this war is about you."

"He's really dead? Is he?" She sounded worried and confused.

Yukio does not respond but he grabs her wrist pulling her deeper into the room. He stomps onto the ground revealing a hidden door in the floor. He lifts it up revealing a staircase. "You will be safer down there. I will send guards to protect this area as well. You can feel them coming closer."

With a hand motion he suggests for her to enter. She hesitates and looks at him once more. "What will happen?"

"At the moment it's difficult to say, but we have a competitive army with very skilled men." He reaches for her hand and lightly kisses it making her blush. He pushes her urging her to go down deep underground. She takes a couple of steps down into what seems like a cave-like room. "Oh there's one more thing I should mention. If you dare escape I will find you and punish you for doing so."

She swallowed dryly keeping her back towards him. "Yes. I understand clearly." The entrance is shut and she hears the locking sound. She continues quickly down the long stair case wanting to immediately find a way out of here. "May the consequences be damned. It's a chance for my freedom."

She reaches the bottom of the ridiculously numerous amount of steps of the staircase. Judging by how deep the staircase went it felt as if the exit was closer to the halfway point of this mountain. She was starting to feel light headed.

"I may die trying to get out of this." She touched her forehead feeling how sweaty she got going down the lengthy stairs. Taking a deep breath in she marched on continuing to discover an exit. To the normal human the cave would appear pitch black but the youkai blood in Liadain helps her see. Though her sight may not be excellent to that of a full blooded youkai but she manages. If nothing else her hearing will have to do.

After an hour of wandering around she finds that the place is like a giant maze. "I've passed these rocks twice already! My freedom is so close I can smell it." She feels vibrations throughout the mountain which meant the battle has started. She starts to get desperate to speed this process.

Her hands run through her hair as she grabs some strands and start to pull on in it out of frustration. She walks onwards again and hears the silk fabric rubbing together. The noise quickly got on her nerves as she starts to claw at the fabric, but she stops herself reminding her it's the only clothes on her back.

There is no telling how long the battle will ensue. Liadain suddenly feels an aura come closely to her and she has her senses on high alert. The bright blue glow dims out to reveal a male youkai with long red hair.

"A-Aedan? But you're dead!"

"Missed me?" He grins widely at her as he walks casually towards her.

"How did you get here? From where?" She asked frantically.

"You wont need to know that now." His eyes shined an evil glint.

Her heart felt something bad was going to happen and so she ran for it. The prince out sped her matching her every turn. She stopped her useless fleeing. "Aw, Liadain come on now you are no fun if you just give up. Make this fun for me." He taunted.

She struggled to catch her breath. "W-why are you doing this?" She had a gut feeling he wants her dead. "I think we both know you're guess is right." He touches her cheek as she jerks away slightly. "I want to permanently take away what he took away from me."

"Don't do this! N-nothing happened between us." She could see in his furious blue eyes he wont listen to reason. "I know. You still have your innocence." Aedan lifts her up from her throat and slams her against the wall of the mountain repeatedly. She wails at the immense pain she is suffering. He continues this until he creates a hole that leads outside of the mountain.

By this time Liadain is barely hanging onto her conscious as her head is booming and her body is cringing in pain. Aedan once again starts to inflict damage on Liadain, but he is quickly blocked by Yukio. Her vision starts to blur but she is able to hear Yukio block Aedan's every move. She starts to painfully roll over not knowing how steep the mountain is, but she senses she isn't too far from her freedom.

The roaring of powerful spells are released causing very loud noises. The two youkais are too involved with their fight to notice Liadain rolling off. As she is rolling down her body picks up speed and rams into a couple of branches and pointy rocks. She does her best not to scream or draw any kind of attention to herself. Her body starts to bounce against the mountain's side and her bones start to crack and dislocate against it. She's taking a gamble on her youkai's healing factor.

Her scrapped body finally makes it to the bottom of the tall mountain. She groans in pain unable to make another move she can feel Aedan and Yukio battling farther away from her presence. She hears human feet approach her as it is the last thing her senses pick up before she passes out.

Days pass-

Five days have passed on and Liadain now opens her eyes to see she's in a hut surrounded by the smell of herbs. She hears crickets and sees the moonlight which informs her it's nighttime. She quickly gets up and sharp pain shoots up her arm warning her to take it easy.

Being on alert she hears someone come. She stiffens not knowing what to do as she stays there in sitting position holding onto her left arm. A young woman and a young pre-teen come in to great her. "Hello, my name is Rin! People from our village found you and brought you here. I helped mend your wounds."

To Liadain, Rin was the most ecstatic person she's met. The young woman next to Rin stayed silent as she went to examine Liadain's wounds. Rin followed suit and assisted asking Liadain a few questions such as who she was and why she was found in the condition that she was.

Liadain made her answers short and to the point. "So me being a hanyou doesn't scare you?" Rin shakes her head no as she is now the only one next to Liadain who was fiddling with her long claws. Rin grabbed one of her hands and looked at the black color. "Hanyous are rare and I haven't met many, but you remind me of another hanyou who isn't here right now."

Her eyes widen a little. "I don't get out much but there's others like me?" She didn't contemplate much on it any longer as she reminded herself she had to get back to Emi. No, that would be too obvious if she were to go back to Emi. She had no plans of running into those two foxes again.

"Yeah! If he comes by to visit someday maybe you two can meet. If you're lucky you can even meet my Lord." Rin looks out past Liadain and openly smiles as she thinks about something. "I hope milord comes to visit me soon again. I can show you what he gave me!"

She runs out of the hut with a candle in hand and fifteen minutes later she has a black box in her hand. She opens the box to reveal hair accessories and combs of the finest craftsmanship. "Aren't they beautiful? Milord is always good to me." Liadain just sat there thinking of who in the world was this person and noticed how friendly Rin was towards her.

"So you know someone who is royalty? Is he Lord of your village?" Liadain carefully picked up each item and examined them noticing the crystals and stones are of the best quality. "Your Lord must be very wealthy."

"He is Lord of the West. His land is farther away." She smiled happily as she spoke about him. "You say he is coming soon again Rin?"

"I hope so!"

An idea struck as she normally isn't one to give things other than to her friend Emi. "Rin, if you would like I'll dress up your hair for when you meet him again. That way you can wear your gifts. It's also my thank you gift to you."

"Oh that would be great! Thank you!"

Rin surprised Liadain with a hug. The red haired hanyou stiffened until Rin released her. She cleared her throat feeling a little embarrassed with Rin's display of affection. "I never learned your name."

"It's Liadain."

"Your name is as foreign as you look."

"I suppose so." Liadain tries to string her fingers through her long matted hair but she discovers it's heavily tangled. "Do you have extra clothes? I really need a bath."

"Yes we do and I can tell you where a hot spring is located." The fox tries to get up and sees how her body reacts to walking. The only thing bothering her is her one arm which continues to be in some pain. Rin goes off to get some clothes for her and Liadain walks outside of the hut. She looks up at the starry night that presents itself. Taking in a deep breath she enjoys the fresh air tonight.

Her senses suddenly feels a great power approaching and it puts her in a panic for Rin's sake. "Rin!" Holding onto her one arm she goes into the direction of where Rin ran off to. The closer she got to Rin the closer the powerful aura was feeling. She ran into a house where she felt Rin was and when she saw Rin holding up a kimono there sat the silver haired demon across from Rin.

Liadain quickly recovered from her stare and embarrassed for interrupting the moment, "my apologies" she went back out recognizing the demon from long before. This explained the immense happiness that she saw in Rin just now. 'It must be her Lord she spoke of. Sesshomaru I believe was his name.'

Liadain is startled by a noise as she turns to see a two headed demon near the house. She quickly hurried back to the hut avoiding any more surprises. She sat there in the middle of the hut thinking what would a daiyoukai be doing with human girl as Rin. Recalling the youkai's face he seemed sincere towards Rin. It confused her beyond belief but then again she never ran into many of his kind.

She heard Rin coming her way and she exited the hut to meet her. To Liadain's surprise Sesshomaru was not far behind. She couldn't sense him this time which meant he could hide his presence as well.

"This is Lord Sesshomaru and he brought me another gift!" She said excitedly and showed off her new kimono. 'Well my thank you gift is ruined now. Right, where are my manners.' Liadain faced Lord Sesshomaru and bowed deeply to him. She didn't know what else to do but she didn't look at his face and felt quite nervous around him. He didn't respond to her nor did he care to acknowledge her. 'What's that stench?' She smelt the air.

'Oh it's me…' Which she remembered and her attention was on Rin now. "It's lovely fabric Rin. Remember you were going to show me where to go. Could you point out where I should go?"

It took a minute to figure out what Liadain was talking about. "Oh right! It's on that side of the lake over there." Rin pointed to where a lake could be seen in the distance and if the fox got closer she could sense where they are. She hurriedly thanked Rin and bowed to Sesshomaru before she sped off.

Rin watched after Liadain as she went with great speed. "Uh oh.. I forgot to give her extra clothes." She looked at Lord Sesshomaru hoping he would give her the extra clothing. "Could you please give this to her Lord Sesshomaru?" He gave the young girl a look that meant he wasn't budging.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Huuuugs to all who review, favor, and put on alert of my story. FEEDBACK is always great! **

Rin insisted once more that he should bring the extra clothing to Liadain. He didn't budge and so she quickly gave up. "Lord Sesshomaru where is Jaken?"

"He's taking care of my orders."

"I see."

It was silent between the two and Rin looks up to see the starry night. "The sky has a lot of stars tonight." Rin then looks into the direction Liadain went for a hot spring bath and wondering how she is doing with her injuries. The location of the lake and hot springs was quite far from the village.

At that very moment Liadain is getting herself soaked under a small waterfall she came across. The waterfall has a cave behind it where she is sitting on her folded legs relaxing. Streams of water drip down her face and nude body. She sighs softly in relief shivering from the cold water "Ahhh, feels great to be clean." Liadain hastily puts her clothes back on and goes to look for a hot spring that is well hidden.

She walks with serenity in the calm of the chilly night enjoying her momentary solitude. "I should hurry. I don't want those damned foxes to find me… if they're still alive." She hears steam and sees an area of the forest heavy with fog. A few inches away she locates a hot spring.

Standing at the edge of it she takes off her wet clothing. She looks around in the nude once again as she twists the fabric tightly to draw out the water. Once she finished squeezing out as much water possible she hangs it onto a nearby branch.

Quickly, she returns to stand at the edge of the hot spring. Slipping out of her sandals she slowly lowers herself to sink into the extremely hot water. She cringes at its temperature as she finally settles down relaxing its shallow depth. She sinks in until the water is up to her neck.

Her pale skin starts to turn rosy. She gazes at the moon that is shining brightly tonight. "My, my, my have you not been told you are a sight for sore eyes. You should really cover up." Her eyes widen and with great haste she gets out of the hot spring. She reaches for her clothes but the red-haired fox rams into her and leaps high into the sky.

She violently struggles out of his grasp seeing his demonic eyes and grin. "Aedan! Let go of me!" They are at very high altitudes and she looks down to see how far up they are. He moves his face closer to hers as she does her best to get further away, "Yukio and his whole tribe is no more!" His arms are around her waste and he starts to squeeze her. She gasps out in pain and she starts clawing and stabbing at his arms.

Aedan gets annoyed with this and squeezes her even more so without holding back. Fearing for her life and struggling to breath Liadain punches his right cheek then with her open palm she slams it up against his nose hearing it crack. This got him to let her go as he readjusts his now bleeding nose in anger.

He goes after her falling form and Liadain sees this. She wishes her falling was faster than the speeds he is coming towards her. Aedan makes contact and forces the fall to go faster having Liadain's long hair blasting past her face. "Stop this Aedan!" She struggles in his strong arms again.

She managed to free one arm and she places a hand against his face sinking her claws into him. His anger rose higher as he now wanted to cause more damage to her. He twisted his face to bite her hand harshly as he was not willing to let her go this time. She grits her teeth in pain. He speeds faster to make contact against the lake's large body of water.

For Liadain the water felt like solid rock as she was forced past the surface tension of the water. They both submerged into the water and seconds later Aedan resurfaces without Liadain as she continues to sink unconsciously. "Hanyou! If you survive this I'll take it as fate that you and I belong together!" The prince jumps out of the water and disappears abandoning Liadain.

Rin goes to the hut to see if Liadain has returned, but she finds no one there. Rin runs back to Sesshomaru, "Lord Sesshomaru, I must go and find Liadain. Let me borrow Ah-Uh." Sesshomaru knew Rin had every right to be worried for he was able to sense another presence. There were moments of spiked aura.

It has gotten late that night and he didn't want to risk Rin's safety so for that reason he decided to go investigate. He figured she would be very insistent and worried about the strange hanyou. "I will be back. Stay here Rin."

"But I want to go too!"

"No. My decision is final."

"But-"

"Rin. Return to the house with Ah-Un." His voice was very stern. He didn't want her to feel more anxious than she already was.

"Yes Lord Sesshomaru." Rin said with great disappointment. Sesshomaru noticed how Rin was starting to be a little more rebellious as she has gotten older. He awaits for the future headaches when she reaches that certain age.

"Please hurry!" She called out after him as he went with an unhurried pace. After some time he is now a few feet away from the lake seeing Liadain standing there drenched as her glowing eyes turn to his direction. She notices the daiyoukai and runs wildly towards him with outstretched claws.

"Reckless hanyou." He muttered. She sped gaining momentum and leaps off the ground to descend upon him. He swiftly moves out of the way and sees her landing. To the untrained eye it would seem as he didn't touch her but he knocked her unconscious. She flops to the ground and her eyes no longer glowed.

He looks at the collapsed fox in annoyance. He picks her up in his arms and returns to the village. Rin sits close to the entrance within the hut, having Ah-Un outside guarding her. Rin lifts her head up to see Sesshomaru in the distance. She gets up in a panic and runs to him to see Liadain unconscious.

"Will she be okay?"

Sesshomaru continues walking in silence and goes into the hut with Rin following close by. He enters and carelessly throws her making a thud sound on the ground. The impact causes Liadain to cough and gasp for air in reaction to the fall. She rolls over onto her side breathing heavily and her hand grips the ground. Rin runs to Liadian's side.

"Bring her clothes Rin." The worried girl gets up and jets out of room. Liadian feels her body is heavier than normal. She grabs her head in pain as she slowly gets up. Water droplets hit the ground as they drip from her shivering body.

With squinting eyes she looks around and sees the silver haired youkai peering down at her with no emotion. She gawks at him with her mouth slightly open. A slight breeze enters the place making her shiver again. With widened eyes she's now aware that she has no clothes on.

Her arms try to cover her shame but she notices this affects him none. He was unmoved by her nude form. A little relieved she stands up still covering herself and gives a deep bow. Not bothering to ask what happened she exited the hut only to run into Rin who had a yukata and a drying cloth in one hand and medicine in another.

She was touched by Rin's thoughtfulness of trying to treat her. Rin smiles brightly seeing Liadain up and walking. "Lady Liadain you seem better!" Her energy was a little much to experience this late at night. Although the hanyou couldn't help but smile at Rin. She took the drying cloth from Rin, "Thank you sweet Rin."

Liadain walks away from the hut drying herself as Rin asked her many questions of her well being. By this time her headache was starting diminish although she felt as though she still had water swimming in her head. "I'm fine Rin, really I am."

"What happened Lady Liadain?"

"Why are you titling me that way? Liadain is just fine."

"Okay… are you going to tell me what happened?" She asked with worry.

Liadain sighs recalling what happened recently. "I'm not really sure myself. A demon came with the intensions of killing me which honestly I still don't understand why. I did nothing to him. Stupid fox…"

She wrapped the drying clothing around her and starts to squeeze the water out of her hair. Rin watches her as she's doing this. Liadain notices her stare as she looks at Rin in question smiling at the preteen. "What's wrong Rin?"

"I think you're a pretty lady. Nice and with hidden tenderness." Rin giggled a little as Liadain blushes. This was the first sincere comment she's received in a very, very long time. No one, not even her one and only friend Emi has given her such a comment. The only thing she did was give suggestions to improve her looks. She never considered Yukio's comments as sincere as he was good at playing around with his words. " I think the moonlight is playing tricks on you Rin."

The recent thought of Emi brought her sadness and knowing that Aedan is still alive she couldn't afford to go to her just yet. "I'm going to leave soon Rin. I don't want that demon to come after you and use you to lure me into something."

"Don't worry I have Lord Sesshomaru to protect me."

Liadain forgot that he was still around and she was sure he was looking their direction since Rin was near her. She wasn't for certain but she could guess the daiyoukai had excellent senses. Liadain clears her throat in nervousness and nods in agreement to Rin's comment. The hanyou sensed that Sesshomaru was never hostile towards Rin in anyway.

"I think I should get dressed now." Rin hands her a pale blue yukata and Liadain quickly dresses herself by putting the yukata on first then slipping out the drying cloth. "This has been a crazy past couple of weeks for me. I just want peace." She mumbled.

"Since your Lord is already here and I promised a gift for you… I think I'll just teach you how to style your hair with your new accessories."

"Really! That would be great!" Rin clasped her hands together in excitement.

"Tomorrow of course. Right now I just want to sleep with the few hours that remain tonight."

The preteen nods her head in agreement and dashes off to Sesshomaru bidding Liadain a goodnight. Feeling exhaustion wash over her Liadain goes to the hut and flops onto the futon in gratitude. She rubs her eyes feeling the heaviness of her eyelids. She recalls what Aedan mentioned about Yukio and his entire tribe wondering if it was true. "He could be exaggerating…" Feeling a pang of guilt she tries to sleep.

Early morning arrives and people from the village are awake with children's laughter and couple's quarreling. The hanyou and the preteen are sitting at Rin's place where Kaede use to live who was pronounced dead for sometime. The house wasn't very close to the villagers. Liadain has Rin sit in front of a mirror styling her hair. Rin watches and listens to the hanyou explain the process. "Okay, so we split the hair like so… and we hold this piece and twist."

Once the demonstration was over, Liadain tells Rin to do same to her red-rusted hair. "Your hair is very long. I don't know if I can."

"You have a good point. Umm, maybe get another person with the same length of hair as yours." The idea of another unknown human was making her feel unsure. 'Humans are cruel with their prejudice as well.'

"Okay Rin, lets just try it on my hair first and I'll help you out."

"Okay!"

Liadain feels Rin's smaller hands work their way through her long hair. For every time Rin messes up or wants to give up Liadain is there encouraging her and advising her quitting is not an option. "There! What do you think Liadain?"

The mirror revealed Rin's version was little more sloppy and loose in certain areas but it looked very similar to Liadain's example. "That's a great first start Rin."

"Really?"

"Yes really. Now you just have to keep practicing. You'll need two mirrors if you want to do this on your own."

Liadain notices something move in the mirror's reflection and she is startled to see it's Sesshomaru. Feeling a bit embarrassed from last night's event she feels heat washing over her face. Rin grabs Liadain's hand and drags her over to him. Liadain wanted to release her hand from Rin's but she didn't want to come off rude or accidentally hurt Rin.

"Look Lord Sesshomaru! Liadain did my hair and I tried to do hers."

She always greeted him with happiness that moved him within but did not reflect outside of it. Sesshomaru merely glanced over at Liadain and focused his attention back to Rin. "Rin come with me."

She hesitantly lets go of Liadain's hand and follows Sesshomaru. Red-orange eyes watch them walk away. "Rin how are you fairing?"

"I'm doing well Lord Sesshomura. Especially if you are here with me."

"Hmph."

"Do you like it better living with the humans?"

"I have gotten use to it. It's fun." She said delighted.

"When is the half-breed and his human returning?"

Rin smiles a little at his use of titles referring to Inuyahsa and Kagome.

"They should be coming back tomorrow milord."

A strange woman and another half-breed was looking after Rin while the familiars were gone. He did not like this. He sighed in irritation for he knew they would not return tomorrow.

"Would you like to stay with me for a while? I have business to care of in the homeland."

"Milord, will you be gone on hunts or missions like you usually do?" Rin always waits for his return after his long leaves of absence.

"No."

"What do you think of Liadain?" Sesshomaru still having a placid face was indifferent to the subject.

"She does not concern us."

Rin smiled as she touched her hair. "I like her, she's nice to me in her own way."

"We will leave as soon as you ready yourself."

Meanwhile, Liadain has already undone Rin's work on her hair and she brushes it while she sits in front of the mirror. It's not often that she looks at herself in the mirror. She gets closer to the mirror and notices how worn out and tired she looks. Her face looks thinner and paler in color. She rests her chin onto her hand and closes her eyes for a moment.

She hears feet running towards her. "Liadain!" Rin's cheerful voice never fails.

"I'm going away soon. To stay with Lord Sesshomaru for a while."

"What? Oh… okay." She was planning her goodbye to Rin, but with a strange turn of events it's Rin who is saying her goodbye.

Liadain was unsure what next to say since this caught her off guard. She decided it was best if she left first. "Well Rin this has been nice spending this very short time with you. I will be leaving now."

"Will you come and visit me? Maybe you can visit me at Lord Sesshomaru's place."

"Uh… I can't say for sure really. I don't think he will like that."

In all honesty she didn't want to see him again and would rather crawl in a hole.

"I can talk to him about it."

She gets up from her sitting position and holds out her hands waving to stop Rin from the idea. "No! That's okay. I will just stop by if my journey leads this way."

"Where will you go?"

"I don't know I just want to get away from all of the fox tribes. I don't want to risk another chance of being kidnapped." Her hand strings through her hair thinking where to go.

"Oh. So you probably wouldn't want to meet Shippou?"

"Who?"

"He's a young fox demon around my age. He's traveling and trying to become a powerful demon. He comes by every so often."

"Hmm, what are his colors?"

"He's like an orange."

She was relieved to know he wasn't from Yukio's or Aedan's tribe. "Well that's good. I'm not sure how good is a quest for power is." If he was as young as Rin says then he's no real threat to her.

Sighing aloud, "I really don't know where to go." Liadain goes outside and looks around to decide where to start.

"Maybe you can travel with us for a little while until you figure out something."

"That's a nice offer but I-"

"Rin stop."

Liadain's skin was crawling when she heard his voice. Rin went over to Sesshomaru and pouted a little. "Can she come with us? I promise she won't bother you. She has no where to go."

The silver haired youkai simply looked at Rin as she continued with all the reason's in the world to bring her along. He was slightly amused with her. "You really don't know her well enough. Nor do you know what trouble she may bring."

"But milord-"

"Rin why do you continue to be this way?" His golden eyes observed her waiting to see what else she could come with. She sighed exasperatedly and backed off, but not without another input.

"I really want to learn how to style my own hair."

He sighed inwardly 'she will become trouble'. His eyes sharply directed to the hanyou as she continues to stand there with her slightly bowed head. 'She has manners at least, but I can smell her fear.' He decided she should continue to have her fear for it created respect.

"Do as you please." He said curtly.

Rin gasped in excitement and went to Liadain holding both of her hands carefully. Liadain smiled at Rin as her heart was racing. She closed her eyes tightly telling herself to get a grip. She looked at Rin's happy face once again.

As the group was ready to journey their way to his castle Sesshomaru addressed Liadain, "How long is your stamina for a fast paced run?"

The question caught her off guard, "Oh, um, I can go on for long time. About a little more than half a day on a good pace. I'm not as good as the full blooded foxes…"

"How could you expect to compare yourself to a full blooded demon." He replied rudely.

'This is to be expected of a daiyoukai to be so crude.' She thought in annoyance.

"Carry Rin with you. My residence is in the northeast direction. I will follow behind."

Liadain bowed her head to him and went to carry Rin on her back as she speed off.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: It's been a while… too much reading to do.**

**Aaaaarggggg**

The red-hair hanyou stops in front of Sesshomaru's estate after three days. She looks at the grandiose structure. She lowers Rin down carefully and takes in the view surrounding her. There were lakes, willow trees, wisterias, gardens, and cherry blossom trees in full bloom. Her eyes followed some of the flower petals that were slowly falling down everywhere covering the ground.

"Such a beautiful place." She whispered.

Rin grabbed Liadain's wrist and started to pull her into the place. She was still enchanted by the view only half listening to Rin's rambling about it. Liadain looks around happily at her surroundings, but that soon fades as she entered the castle feeling the hostile looks from the youkais.

She looked back to see Sesshomaru was not around anymore. "Come on I'll show you my room." She nodded to Rin gratefully as the hanyou wanted to be out of sight. Both Rin and Liadain stood out amongst the silver to white haired beings. They pass by the few youkais that were in the vicinity and they all aimed their eyes at her. Liadain kept her eyes to the floor trying to ignore the obvious.

The two now stand in front of a sliding door that has paintings of purple flowers. Rin slides the door open and goes in, "this is my room-".

Rin looks back to see Liadain out in the doorway looking to her left at someone as she speaks in anger. "Let go of me!" Liadain fumes at the youkai that is holding her by the shoulder. She jerks back and looks rudely into the eyes of the inu. He has golden eyes and long silver hair that is tied back similar to his kind and a buffer build. "What is your purpose with the child?"

"If you couldn't tell she held me by the wrist without any fear. I have no intentions of harming her."

"Answer my question half-breed!" He grabs her by the arm and pulls her away from the doorway. Rin goes after her and stands in front of Liadain to try and stop her from being taken away. This alarms Liadain and she carefully pushes Rin away from her afraid that this youkai may accidentally harm her. "Rin you should go." She tells her in panic.

"Please! Sir she is… my caretaker. We traveled here together with milord- Leave her alone or Lord Sesshomaru will hear about this."

This caused the inu-youkai to laugh, "He cares not for any lowlife hanyou."

"But she hasn't done anything!" Rin looked at Liadain exasperatedly.

Laidain shakes her head at Rin, "I'll be fine… just let Lord Sesshomaru know where I am."

"There's no need for that. He will be notified of this after you're locked up." He continues to tightly hold her covered arm which annoyed her to no end. She felt like some child being scolded the way he held her.

"You can let go of me I will follow without a fight." She spoke through clenched teeth.

"I won't be so easily tricked by a fox."

"I am no where near that devious."

He made no comment as they walked briskly side by side. She felt that he started to loosen his grip, and wondered why he did. As he lead her down more unfamiliar halls of the palace she saw youkais staring and pointing at them. She felt like some lowly criminal even though she knew she did nothing wrong. She grew red in the face from the embarrassment of it.

Her captor looks at her noticing her face and he starts to laugh at her which causes her to feel more embarrassed. "Stop laughing…" She chided seriously. She covered her face with her one hand trying to hide her embarrassment.

He stifled another laugh finding her amusing. He leads her outside to the back of the palace where she saw more gardens. Her senses were overloaded with such pleasant smells and sceneries. She felt the guard tugging her arm to keep up with the pace. The brisk walking was making her uncomfortable.

She put her free arm underneath her chest to stop the uncomfortable movement. 'I really need to get some cloth to bind them down.' She looked at the youkai contemplating if she should bother to ask him. He feels her stare and gives her a questioning look.

"What?"

She turns away shaking her head reframing from asking. He notices her hand is holding the ribcage area. He sniffs the air smelling no blood. "Anything the matter?" He questioned her gruffly.

"Uh… no." She said shyly. Her eyes averted to the ground catching a quick glimpse of her chest to see if there was any noticeable movement. The youkai caught this so he stops walking and pulls her in closer to him as he starts to squeeze her arm. She narrowed her eyes at him and tried to struggle her arm out of his grip. "Are you trying to seduce me in such a sly manner?"

Her eyes widen and her mouth slightly dropped at his offensive comment. Her hand moved from her rib and swung towards his face. He caught it and smirks at her. She snatches her hand back in anger.

"I wouldn't lower myself to a hanyou like you." He takes a quick glance at her chest. "Even if they are a bigger size."

She turns red from fury as she tightens her hands into fists. She distances herself from him as much as she can and turns her back to him. "Who told you to look in the first place! Stupid dog… what makes you think you're so special."

He ignores her insults and laughs again at the expense of her embarrassment. He starts walking again pulling her along. She tries to stay behind him but he pulls her next to him. She reaches the back of her hair and splits its long length into two. She brings them forward to cover her chest with them. 'I should have thought of this in the first place.'

Her captor watches her do this and when she finished she glares at him. "What now?"

"What is your name hanyou?"

"Why does it matter since I'm such a lowlife."

"True. But I'm curious."

"It shouldn't matter… I don't care to know your name either." She said quietly paying attention to her surroundings.

He gave her a hard stare but says nothing more. They remained quiet the rest of the way until they reached a rigid stonewall that had a guarded entryway. She felt herself shoved forward almost losing her balance. She looked back in anger but saw that the inu youkai was in the progress of a bow which confused her.

Then she felt that aura and turned around to see Lord Sesshomaru standing there. She quickly lowered her eyes to the floor and bowed to him as she placed a hand on her chest. "What is going on Sadao?" He asked casually directing his attention to the captor.

"Sir. I saw this hanyou with the child. I am in the process of having her locked up until I receive further instructions from you."

"Then you are dismissed."

"Lord Sesshomaru you don't have to personally trouble yourself with the hanyou-"

"Sadao."

"Yes sir."

Sadao hesitating to leave gives the daiyoukai a bow. As he leaves his face has a confused look, 'Has Lord Sesshomaru gone even softer these days? Ever since that human girl…'

Sesshomaru turns to look at Liadain feeling irritated. "If any trouble is caused on your behalf or reasons that lead to you- I will have you exiled from here. Or kill you myself."

She nods to confirm as she keeps her head lowered. "Then I won't last long here. I will leave tomorrow night Lord Sesshomaru." She took the hint that she really wasn't welcomed here. She already knew she's here because Rin wanted her here.

He says nothing more and walks away from her. Liadain would have thanked him for the help but she felt that was not the situation here. She lifts her head up to the sky closing her eyes and releases a quiet sigh. 'It's not like I mean for such things to happen.'

Using both of her hands she rubs her face trying to rub out the pathetic feeling of self pity. She tells herself not to take any of these strange misfortunes personally. She reassures herself that she is not the only female fox who has to fight off or give into such predicaments. Or the only half-breed that fits no where in society. But she does feel very alone with no one to share her afflictions.

Her shoulders droop as she turns to head back to Rin with a masked face. Only the youkais could faintly sniff out her true emotions. Laidain now makes it to Rin's sliding doors, "Rin! I'm coming in." She slides it open to see the preteen halfway there to greet her. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm absolutely fine. Lord Sesshomaru took care of it which I'm sure it was because you convinced him to." Rin smiles happily at Liadain. The red head enters the room and looks around surprised to see how spacious it is.

"He does take good care of you doesn't he."

"Yes, milord is very good to me. Always has been." She said with thoughtfulness.

Liadain inhales the wood smell given off by the room. It was pleasant with a warmth not felt through physical touch. "Okay Rin time to learn some new hair styles."

"Let me bring you a brush."

The two spend the rest of the day playing with hair and enjoying each other's company. Late afternoon settles in and Rin is on her futon fast asleep in Liadain's arms. She carefully slips her arms from around Rin. Liadain gets up and leaves the room and closes the sliding door quietly avoiding the chance of waking up Rin.

Liadain decides to take a look around the palace by herself to see what other splendors can be discovered throughout the place. She steps lightly away from Rin's room and walks quietly seeing the sunset's light make everything have orange hues. She makes it to the front of the palace and ventures off to the right of it where she saw a lake surrounded by few willow trees. The lake is located many walking paces away from the palace. She follows the pebbled road that leads that way.

Walking at her own pace she enjoys the peace that has settled in. Nighttime is in and her eyes follow the fireflies surrounding the area. The sounds of crickets, fireflies, and a frog or two are all that are heard. She makes it to the lake she starts to slowly walk around it taking in the view up close.

There was no one in site but she could feel youkais in the distance. When she finished circling the lake she sits in the grass near a willow tree that wasn't too close to the lake's edge. Liadain starts plucking out some of the grass watching the reflection of the moonlight in the lake. "I wonder how long it will be to get to you Emi?"

She feels random auras coming in her direction but they eventually deter off away from her. One youkai continues its way towards her without wavering in another direction. Feeling unsettled Liadain gets up trying to seem casual about it and walks away from the lake. She manages to get away with only a few steps as the youkai speedily catches up with her.

The youkai grabs her from behind and swiftly pins her to the ground near the tree. In surprise she sees that it's the guard from earlier. "You?"

He smirks at her holding her down by the shoulders. "I see you remember me. Do you really know me?"

She looks at him in question. "What? How about you let me go?"

"It's a shame you don't remember me Liadain."

"How do you know my name? Who told you?"

There was something strange about him. She concentrated on his face trying to figure it out.

"Last time we saw each other you disappeared from the mountains."

"I never saw you there…"

"Oh I was there and I participated in that battle."

"How… the only ones who fought were the fox youkais. What benefit did the inus get from that?"

"You're right there were no inu youkais."

He leans in closely to her face and she turns away from him. He speaks in a difference voice in her ear, "you were to be my mate."

Her brows raise up high in surprise, "Yukio-sama?"

She looks at him to see his spirit possessed the guard's body. 'Aedan was right… he's dead.' She felt partially at fault for his death somehow. The feeling of guilt suddenly disappeared when she felt his hands roaming. She grabbed them and pulled them away from her hips.

"Get off of me." Liadain found this strange seeing Sadao approach her this way when she clearly knows it's Yukio's doing. He ignores her and starts to undo her light blue yukata. She struggles against him but stops when she sees him grab his head in pain and then he collapse on top of her.

Not a moment sooner she hears him groan. She starts to push his muscular body off of her only to have her action interrupted by him grabbing her arms. He is still weary but has a strong grip. She pushes him again only to have him roll to the side taking her along with him.

She lays atop of him at an angle. She tries to get up and now stands hunched over him with her arms still held. Sadao is quickly recovering seeing the looming figure. His eyes see her yukata loosen up involuntarily then realizing who it is as his senses come back to him.

He sits up quickly yanking her down to her knees. He brings her closely in anger. "What the hell do you think you were doing fox? What trickery did you pull off on me?"

"I did nothing! You came onto me!" She didn't mean for it to come out that way.

"I don't recall drinking anything for me to do anything with the likes of you!"

She glares at him and tries to keep still to prevent her yukata from completely opening up. "You were possessed by a youkai spirit." Sadao sniffed the air smelling another fox youkai that left not long ago. "What did you get that spirit to do to me? Tell me!"

He held her arms tighter. "Nothing! He possessed you and came to me."

"I don't believe you" He sneered.

"Remember I'm a lowly hanyou who has lesser strength than you… how could I possibly have the ability of commanding a spirit. Think about it!"

He stands up and roughly pulls her up to stand as well. The loosened strap that held her yukata comes off and she tries to get at least one arm free to prevent it from falling. "It's going to fall! Let me go!"

She tries to bend her elbow close to her body to hold it but it falls. She looks at him with irritation and anger. She twists the front of her body to face away from him. He stands there watching her. "Did you attempt to seduce me again?"

"No!"

'Yukio-sama how could you bring this upon me!' She thought in frustration. Sadao's height towered over her and could see the curves in between her breasts and her exposed stomach. She uses her arm that is crossed over to move the cloth for coverage. From her peripheral vision she can see his eyes aimed at her.

"Stop looking!"

"Tch. You would be wise not speak to me that way." He turns his head away from her and decides to let one arm go free to properly cover herself. She wraps her yukata tighter around her in relief. "This is shameful." She says quietly. Sadao hears this as he looks at her again. She stands there facing away from him.

They stay like this in silence. Liadain awaits for him to throw her in the cellar, but she feels no movement from him. He loosens his grip but doesn't let go. His thumb rubs her forearm and Liadain yanks her arm away from him. She walks away from him and goes back to the palace. She didn't even want to wonder what was going through his mind at the moment.

Inside the palace Liadain quickly walks down a couple of halls to make it to Rin's room. To her surprise Sesshomaru is standing there. She walks up to him and gives him a respectful bow. With her head remaining low, "What brings you here Lord Sesshomaru? How can I serve you?"

He sniffs the air, "Have you intentionally tried to seduce Sadao?"

"What? Excuse me Lord Sesshomaru but I have done no such thing." She looks at him in shock for his assumption.

"Then why do I smell him all over you?"

"I- I don't know if you would believe me milord."

Sesshomaru goes to grab her face forcing her to look him in the eye. Startled by this move she closes her eyes for a second then opens them trying to look at him. She gets a good view of his unyielding, handsome face, but she quickly tosses that thought and concentrates on the matter at hand.

"He was possessed by a fox youkai's spirit. I'm sure you can smell the other presence."

Sesshomaru shoves her face away from him. Liadain tries to ignore his continual rudeness and refrains from saying anything to the strong youkai. Her eyes go back to the floor. She doesn't notice his fingers rubbing against each other. His fingers have the lingering feeling of her soft face.

"Why do female foxes have such a bad reputation?" She said this mostly to herself.

"You really don't know do you?"

Liadain surprised that he would comment at all shakes her head no.

"You are to leave immediately."

Her mouth hangs slightly opens. The sudden feeling of nervousness wallows in.

"I-I didn't do anything to him… he came to me. I-I tried to get away."

Sesshomaru ignores her and walks away expecting to do as she's told.

"Can I at least say goodbye to Rin?"

"You are not to wake her." With that he walks out of site.

Liadain is in the room and looks at Rin unsure how to say goodbye without her being conscious. At that moment she made up her mind that she wasn't going to leave. She decided to go look for his rudeness. She steps out and sees someone leisurely passing by. She walks up to the youkai only to stop halfway realizing it's Sadao. She groans internally as she tries to slip away unnoticed, but only to be quickly halted by her arm.

"How do I keep running into you?" She said out of surprise and irritation.

"Well, well if it isn't the innocent fox."

She sighs aloud as she tries to free her arm from him. "You're statement rings true." She keeps pulling and tugging but her arm doesn't budge free. She doesn't want to start a mess within the palace knowing Sesshomaru will be more irritated and angry with her. Sadao silently watches her as she struggles.

She stops trying and gives a stomp onto floor in frustration. 'I need to find him.' She gives her back to him and all the while he observes her figure. She gets a chilling feeling but doesn't dare look back.

"Please. Let me go. Please." She said this in this nicest way possible through barely clenched teeth.

"You were coming to me first."

"And that gives you the right to grab me? I was only going to ask a question. Honestly I didn't think the youkai I was walking to was you… Oh why does this keep happening to meee?"

He laughs at her finding the hanyou's action amusing. She places her hand onto her face feeling her frustration ensue. Sighing aloud again she runs a hand through her hair and turns to face him. "Then escort me to Lord Sesshomaru please."

"Why? You plan on trying to seduce him?" He looks at her angry face feeling irked suddenly. She shakes her fist into the air feeling a failure at not having anything handled peacefully.

"For the last time… I do not have the skill or the ability of seducing any male on this forsaken planet."

"Oh you do have the ability. Every female does." He eyes her intensely making her feel weary.

"I don't exactly act lady-like nor am I... You know what I don't need to explain myself to you. Take me to him."

"No."

"Why are you being so difficult? What is it that you have against me? Well… besides me being a half-breed."

"I just don't like you." He sneers at her as she simply looks at him peeved.

"That's not a good enough answer." She looks back where Rin's room is and figures they should talk someplace else. She has a feeling this is going to be a long night.

"Let's take this argument someplace else since you're being difficult."

"There's no need."

He lets her go much to her surprise and walks off. 'What is up with him? He's been strange… not like I know him enough to say that.' She goes to look for someone else to ask where Sesshomaru is. She approaches a female inu who holds her fan elegantly. The inu has long lovely silver hair decorated with beautiful gems and she wears a long purple silk kimono with flowers all over.

"U-uh excuse me miss… I am look for Lord Sesshomaru. Could you tell me where he is?"

The female inu looks Liadain up and down deciding she looks a little raggedy and a little unusual. She goes to grab some of Liadain's rust-red colored hair. Liadain becomes intimidated by her approach.

"Are you one of his concubines?"

"P-pardon?"

"Well are you?" The inu youkai fans herself a little impatiently.

"N-no. I didn't know he had one of those."

"Every member of the aristocracy does. It's common knowledge… you seem to know nothing."

"Umm yeah."

"So why are you looking for him hmmm?" She eyed Liadain suspiciously, but then laughs.

"You must know he's colder than the usual youkai."

"Right." Liadian starts to rub her arm uncomfortably finding this conversation a bit awkward.

"Follow me."

"O-oh thank you."

Liadain follows quietly and tries to sense Sesshomaru but feels nothing. 'I really shouldn't trust her so easily. I bet she isn't even really taking me to him. It's probably some trap…' Liadain nervously fidgets with her hands as she keeps pace behind the attractive female.

The two eventually make it outside of the palace going to the left side of it. Liadain looks around in suspicion and tries to stay alert for whatever may come. The mysterious female stops walking and points to where Sesshomaru is standing alone in the distance.

Liadain gives her a grateful bow and goes to Sesshomaru in nervousness.

**A/N: Youkai = demon, spirit, monster…**

**Since youkai's or animals are not human I think it wouldn't be appropriate to call either gender man or woman. **

**What do you guys think?**


	6. Chapter 6

'Should I go? No, it's safer here. No. I don't know.'

Liadain walks to Sesshomaru's lone figure as she unconsciously fidgets with her hands again. She slowly paces her way to him having conflicting thoughts whether this was a good idea in the first place.

He was located quite far. "I refuse to go out there and risk any foxes finding me." She was determined even if she was feeling her skin crawl again. Fifteen minutes pass and she hasn't hit the halfway mark.

"I suppose what you say is true." The male voice was right beside her.

"Ah!" Liadain grabs the front of her yukata out of surprise as she was deep in thought. She looks at him not understanding why he's here.

"You again? Make up your mind!"

He grimaced at her. Liadain looked at him searching his face to see if it was really him. To her relief it was. "What do you want dog?"

He gave a deep growl in discontent. "I was curious to see if I was right."

"You were thinking of me? Now that seems out of character for you." He bared his fangs at her. She turned to see Sesshomaru has disappeared. She stretched out her neck looking all over the place ignoring Sadao's annoyed face.

"Why does he do that? Ahhh, this is- " She stopped in the midst of her rant and looked back at Sadao who didn't like being ignored.

"You're curious to see if what you think is true? Then take me to him and you will find out."

"Hmph. I don't take kindly to females who believe they could order me around."

'Ahhhh this stupid dog. All males and their damn pride!' She attempts to relax her face and decides to play nice.

"Sadao-san, could you please take me to Lord Sesshomaru. It's very important."

When she called him by name it sounded strange to him. He raised an eyebrow at her sudden change in character, but he wasn't falling for the obvious fakeness.

"So you're trying out your supposed charm hmm? What you did just now was a bit deceit."

Not bothering to argue she sighed drooping a bit in her stance. "Fine. I'm going to find him myself."

"Why are you looking for him?"

"Does that mean you believe me now?"

He says nothing and just looks at her. Nothing else was said in the next minute. She turns away from him to find Sesshomaru again trying to smell or feel his presence.

"Fox!" She stopped walking and looks at Sadao in question. He goes to her, "Lets make a deal."

"Oooh no no no. I trust no one. No deal."

"This one is secure."

She watched his face suspiciously. "I'll hear it but I don't guarantee anything."

His golden eyes start to wander but forces himself to stop. Liadain saw this feeling self-conscious. "What? Say it and stop staring!"

He grabbed her by the shoulders shaking her a bit, "If you order me again I will pull your head right off." She pulls out of his grasp in anger and smoothes out the fabric. Staying quiet she awaits to hear what he says.

"I would like your servitude for one month."

"What?" Her eyes flared. Sadao on the other hand stands there with such casualty as if it was nothing.

"You heard me."

"But why would I serve you or any inu?"

"You serve Lord Sesshomaru don't you?"

"No, not exactly."

"Doesn't matter. He gave me permission to do so, but it was more like he didn't care."

"Wh-what? I thought- " She couldn't fathom what was going on.

"Anyway, I know this isn't an offer you can refuse. I was informed of your situation and what's happening with the foxes."

"How? Who… forget it I'm not going to do it."

"What? You're afraid I might do something?" He smiles slyly.

"Your eyes keep wandering of course I fear you may do something." That sly smile disappears into a scowl.

"I have more pride than that to lay with the likes of you."

"Keep telling yourself that and I wish you do believe in it. You've been strange and maybe desperate..." She scrunches her eyebrows at him.

"I'll have you know-"

Liadain looks away and starts walking aimlessly feeling abandoned in a way. Sesshomaru apparently gave this inu permission to have her servitude. She starts to weigh her options. If she were to go out there and wander she risks being enslaved to child bearing. The fox youkais need every offspring that can be produced. One has already found her in spirit and the other thinks she's dead.

On the other hand she could be stuck with this strange inu doubting that he would do anything to her. After all she isn't an inu and most species tend to stick to their kind.

She stops walking and looks at Sadao again. "No this won't work. Whether you mean to or not that fox youkai will take over again and who knows what that spirit plans on doing."

"That shouldn't be a problem. I already have a solution to that."

"Why are you bothering with me? I bet you already have a servant."

"No I do not." He watches Liadain sit on the grass and starts pulling out some of it. He comes closer to where she sits.

"This is ridiculous conflict." She thought aloud.

"Then make it easier on yourself and honor your youkai side."

"I don't care for either part of me. I've been outcast by both." He looks at her from behind as she props up her knees laying her face on them.

"I will let you know the conditions of this arrangement."

"I haven't agreed to anything."

He ignores her and continues on. "First off I would never allow us to be intimate. Secondly, just do all that I order you and you're free for the rest of the day if I have nothing else for you. But you are to do what I say every time I say so."

She huffed at his conditions thinking that they were absurd. "What happens if I or you were to break these so called conditions. How do I know you won't abuse my service?"

"You don't but if you want assurance we can have this in writing."

"A business man I see. What are the consequences to disobeying? Knowing youkais it's either torture or murder." She stares at the grass in concentration. "A scrap of paper also means nothing."

"You are not far from the truth, but if I were to break them you are free to go. If you were to be the deal breaker then I'd think about what punishment to give you. Not so much as you what you are thinking."

"I don't like the sound of that. It's not fair. I refuse."

Sadao was starting to think why he was bothering with her as she stated earlier. He could feel his impatience rise. "Alright, no punishment. I'll just throw you out there to the foxes. Let them have at it with you."

She liked the no punishment deal but the thought of the foxes had her thinking again. 'I could risk it out there. Can I really make it out there? I should beg Sesshomaru to keep me here.'

"Aren't you afraid I'll seduce you?" She said suddenly having a mental laugh at the thought. She just didn't see it ever happen. Her body was shaking trying to hold herself back from bursting into laughter. Suddenly she felt her hair being pulled hauling her back side onto the grass. She rubs the back of her head from the momentary pain and looks up to see him peering down at her.

She frowns at him, "What was that for!"

"What is so funny?"

She smiled sheepishly looking away not wanting to answer. He decides to sit next to her laying form. She quickly sits up feeling the need to be cautious as she watches him do this. He gives some space between them.

"What do you care. Tell me the real reason why you're doing this." She goes back to pulling out grass.

"I have to train troops in fighting. I just need you to maintain my place, wash clothes, things of that sort."

"I'm sure there are many who can do this for you."

"Yes, but you've been interesting for the short moments of meeting you."

"So you really want me around just for entertainment?" She felt a bit insulted. Her eyes look over to him. He had on a serious expression as he sat there beside her.

"I hope you realize I'm not all that fun to be around. I'm not always entertaining as you think. Like everyone else you'll just get bored."

"I'll find ways around that."

"What do you mean?" Her hands and jaw clenched.

He grins at her which only makes her more furious. She takes in a deep breath and exhales calming herself. She gets the feeling he's teasing her just for fun.

"Where would I stay? Could I room with Rin for the remaining week?"

Sadao rubs his chin in thought, "Sounds like you are accepting my offer. I haven't thought about where you would stay, but for tonight you stay in the same room as me."

Liadain looks at him in alarm. "That's not necessary! I'll stay with Rin."

He laughs at her nervousness. He stands up and offers a hand to her. She dismisses it and gets up herself refusing his help. He didn't like that.

"I'm afraid you will stay with me tonight."

"I thought you wouldn't let any intimate situations happen."

"My place has plenty of room for you to stay. We won't be so close to each other."

"But-"

"If you really want to go through with this do as I say." He said sternly.

"I don't exactly trust you." She searches his face wanting to believe him.

"Nothing will happen. I suggest you take a bath first before you come to my place."

She did feel dirty. "No. I want to use this as my security."

Even if she couldn't stand the feeling of being dirty she desperately wanted assurance. He looked at her baffled at her nonsense.

"You will bathe or I will do it for you." He grabbed her and carried her over his shoulder. "W-wait! Remember no intimate moments! I will not let you see me naked!" She wailed.

She struggled to get off but he gripped her tighter. She was feeling her body start to wear out and her lids felt heavy. It has been a long day. She loosely hanged over his shoulder no longer fighting him.

They quickly arrive to a river. He lowers her down and she moves away from him. "Promise me you won't look." He holds up a hand swearing not to do so and turns around. She still finds herself unable to trust him and decides to keep her yukata on.

The water feels cold against her skin feeling the river's flow isn't quite as strong as she thought. She swims near a rock and latches on to it. She submerges into the water every so often having nothing to scrub herself with. She looks back once in a while to see if he was peeking, but he stays true to his word.

She now stands at the river's edge as she struggles to split her wet hair pulling them in front of her for coverage. Her hair looks less fuller since it's wet so the coverage isn't as much as she would have liked. She finishes squeezing out all the water she can.

She crosses her arms walking up behind him, but stops going further as she sees him taking his top clothing off. He reveals his back muscles and holds out the top to her. She slowly approaches him shivering and feeling nervous.

"Thank you." She meekly says. She puts it on seeing it looks much larger on her smaller body. She could smell his scent all over the top which didn't smell unpleasant surprisingly. She felt shy wearing his clothing. Her eyes look to the ground not wanting to look at him. Sadao turns to look at her finding her behavior amusing.

He notices how the thin yukata hangs onto her shapely thighs. He feels the itch to take back his top, but reminds himself she is a hanyou for goodness sake. Feeling irritated he picks her up in his arms and with haste goes to his place located outside of the palace. All the while Liadain looks away from him not questioning him.

They now stand in front of his doorway and Sadao leaves Liadain to stand there. She hears clanging of metal and rustling of unrecognizable objects. She sees Sadao appear again giving her a drying cloth. She quickly takes the item, "Thank you again."

"Finish drying yourself then you can come in and I'll show you where to change."

She nods as she continues to avoid looking at him and turns around to give her back to the door. She quickly dries herself under the top wanting to go to sleep already. Finally, she goes inside with somewhat damp clothes feeling the need to be cautious again.

Sadao appears in front of her and she looks away, "Why are you acting so shy hanyou?"

"I have a name!"

"What is it?" He moves his head to try and see her face.

"I'm not telling you." She said stubbornly.

He chortles at how silly she is being. He knows he's making her feel nervous. "I must say I'm convinced you are not a seductress."

"That's what I keep telling you and everyone else."

"It could be that you're not comfortable yet. Give back what I loaned you." He holds out his hand waiting.

Her lips tighten at his constant doubt of her and holds onto to the top tightly not ready to give it up. "I can give you clothes to change into."

He goes up to her handing her feminine clothing. She looks up at him in question wondering why he has something like this in the first place. He shrugs his shoulders giving a wicked grin.

"Oh… You're that kind."

"What can I say the ladies like me."

"Oh please." She said rolling her eyes at his statement.

"You're allowed to have wandering eyes hanyou. However, I won't allow touching from you."

"You are so full of yourself. Why am I surrounded by such males..."

She looks around finding somewhere to change. His place was spacious but an absolute mess with weaponry in piles along with clothes and dishes. Surprisingly the place didn't smell unpleasant.

"The females like this mess?"

"No but they do like me. I sometimes can get them to clean for me."

"I really shouldn't stay here."

"What now." He growled.

"You're a... well I won't say it b-but I don't want to be around when you interact with umm activities." She was starting to feel red.

"I'll give you enough warning."

She made a face at that shaking her head not even wanting to think of such scenarios. He laughs at her. "I'll be pretty busy this month so there's no need for you to worry much."

"Much? I don't want to talk about this anymore." She was sure her face was bright red by now and he could see it.

"Are you jealous?"

"Hah! As if I could produce such feelings towards you. Show me where to go change." She smelled the clothing to see if it smelt funny.

"It's clean."

She looks at him square in the face.

"There's a room in that corner."

She went to it happy to get away from the inu, but that said inu takes his top back. She looks at him peeved and covers herself with the other yukata. She goes to the direction of the room now covering her back side.

Sadao catches a glimpse at her back figure again trying to deny how he likes her wide hips carry her plump round bottom. "Curse that hanyou." He can feel the blood pulsing faster throughout him. He calms himself trying not to be so weak for a hanyou. He recalls how her body felt when he carried her here.

His thoughts are interrupted as he sees Liadain come out wearing a yellow yukata with brown patterned flowers. "Where should I sleep?" She knows this won't be a good night she will be up with one eye on him.

She stares at his muscular body for a little bit but then looks away unable to openly look at him. 'All these inus are attractive creatures.' She hasn't seen one that wasn't attractive from what she's observed.

"You can sleep on top of me."

"W-what? No! I'm leaving."

Sadao sits there roaring loudly with laughter. She stands there embarrassed and angry, but decides to go through with what she said. She goes to the exit but is stopped by an angry Sadao. She now clearly sees his tight muscular abs. She takes a couple of steps back knowing he's angrier than usual now.

"Apparently I've scared you, but you still can't leave."

She sighs feeling suffocated already. "What's the big deal with me spending the night with Rin? It's not like I'll run off. By the way what happens if I do that?"

"Do you really want to find out? If you want the month to go by smoothly I suggest you do just as I say."

"I see this was a mistake. I am leaving." She tries to get around but he grabs her then pushes her onto his futon. She falls on it and her eyes are wide with panic as she scrambles up onto her feet. She holds her chest having that feeling of almost hyperventilating, but she deeply breaths in and out trying to calm herself. She doesn't look at him but she can hear him walk away.

It's quiet in the house and no sound has stirred since then. Liadain sits near a corner within the house hugging her knees. Her eyes droop every so often trying to not fall asleep. She hasn't seen or heard Sadao come out from where he went. Her head bobbed this time jerking her awake, but the waking feeling quickly wears off and her head slides against the wood to lay there near the corner.

Morning arrives and Sadao is the first to be awake very early. He stretches out the knots and kinks he had to suffer from sleeping on the floor last night. He walks out to check on the troublesome hanyou. To his dismay she's leaned against a corner and didn't bother sleeping on his futon.

"What a waste." He grumbled.

He approaches her and sees her mouth slightly open with her head bent back. He felt a chuckle build up but holds it in. He squats down and shakes her shoulder. She wakes up in a panic and sees it's him. Before she could react she quickly holds her neck and back feeling the pain.

"Ah.. Uh! That hurts."

"That's what happens when you don't sleep on the bed when you should have."

"Mm… ah, Thought. You were. Coming back. To terrorize." She struggled to speak without sounding in pain.

"Here I'll help." He comes closer but she holds out her hand not wanting to be near him right now. He pushes it away and turns her body by the shoulders to face him directly. He pulls her hand away that holds her neck and examines the sore neck. Liadain did not like how close he was to her. Sadao on the other hand had no other thoughts but wanting to help her recover quickly.

He slides his hand behind her neck making her flinch. His face moves closer for examination and Liadain watches his attractive face. He feels no swelling on her neck only warmth and softness. He pulls away not wanting to linger more than he should. His golden eyes look at her face and she looks away.

He gives himself a self assured smile. His sharp ears can hear her loudly pumping heart and her now growling stomach. He stands up offering a hand to help her up. Liadain decides she should take his offer before angering him this morning.

"I thought you didn't like this hanyou?" She noticed she didn't feel pain anymore as she stands up.

"I still don't."

"You make no sense sometimes." She rubs her neck a bit.

"Tell me your name or I'll continue you to call you hanyou, fox, or something else. I'll come up with it."

"Fine. It's Liadain."

"Yeah, you're definitely foreign."

"I've heard it all before. I don't need to be reminded on how strange I look." She's always felt unattractive, outcast, and never really meant to be here.

"I'm leaving you now. I don't have any food for you, but you can go have your breakfast with the girl. After that you have to clean up my place. Once you're done with that be back by nightfall."

He takes one last look at her and turns to leave her as he's already dressed for training. She decides to leave once she felt he was far enough. She feels him returning suddenly making her feel alarmed. He enters his place and signals with his hand for her to follow him.

"But I haven't washed my face or anything."

"Come on. You can do that at the girl's place."

"So I'm going straight to her?"

He nods as he impatiently waits for her. She follows behind him as he leads the way to Rin's room. They walk silently for a while until Liadain decides to break the silence. "You know I could have walked to Rin's place myself. I can follow my senses to get to her. I don't understand why you're doing this."

"Don't question me."

"You really are strange." The silence between the two returned. Liadain watches him greet the other youkais as they passed by and throwing questionable looks at her. She noticed some of the female inus openly flirt with Sadao. She had to roll her eyes at the embarrassing display.

One of them decided to stick around him longer and Liadain felt awkward having to be around this. She looked away from them, but was able to hear the subtle touching that was taking presence. She decided to walk much slower.

"There is no point in following." Quietly saying this to herself.

Her red-orange eyes looked around the decorative palace admiring all that she saw. She sees someone in the corner of her eye looking her way. She looks to see it's Sesshomaru. Her eyes widen in surprise and quickly goes to him. He stands there as she makes her way to him.

She gives him a bow, "Good morning Lord Sesshomaru. Thank you for somehow allowing me to be here." She spoke nervously.

"Your stay will not be pleasant."

"What do you mean?" She concentrated looking at the floor trying to think what it could be.

Sesshomaru walks away and she follows him with hesitation. She had a feeling he may be going to Rin's room. She looks back to see where Sadao went. There he was standing with the same female inu but his eyes stared at Liadain. The look he was giving her meant he will deal with her later.

She goes back to follow Sesshomaru. They make it to Rin's room as Liadain greets her explaining briefly of her situation and where she will be. "I'm leaving you and Lord Sesshomaru alone."

"Will you be back later on?"

"I might it just depends how much work I have to do." Liadain was thinking of having breakfast with Rin but she didn't want to intrude. Sesshomaru hasn't said much since she's been there. She bows goodbye and leaves.

"Oh no." Sadao is making his way towards her having that same female inu nearby only this time she has an annoyed face as she tries to keep up with his pace. Liadain panics and sprints away exiting to the back of the palace.

Sadao quickly catches up to her and grabs her by her hair. "Ow! Let me go!"

"You know..." He huffed in anger. He pulled once more on her hair for good measure. She yelps.

"Running away from me only makes it worse." He lets go of her and she tries to rub her pain away. She doesn't bother to look at him and awaits to hear what he has to say.

He breaths trying to calm himself from getting angrier. "I thought I told you I was going to escort you to the girl's place."

"To be exact I did not hear any of those words."

"But you knew did you not?"

"I knew you were taking me to Rin but I couldn't guess I had to stay with you the whole way there." Liadain looks at him seeing he was getting angrier.

"Listen, I could not stand to follow you much longer. It was embarrassing to witness the flirting. It was really uncomfortable."

"I-"

"Sadao-san! How dare you ignore me like that?"

He was starting to get annoyed by this female wishing she'd leave him alone for the moment. He turns around to look at her seeing her silvery hair swish side to side in fury.

"Not now Kumiko."

"Sadao-san..." Kumiko said in a much calmer tone.

"I'm dealing with my troublesome servant right now. Leave us." Kumiko looked at Liadain feeling that the hanyou didn't challenge her in the beauty department. She couldn't help but glare at Liadain for gaining Sadao's attention.

Liadain took the hint, "No worries I don't want him. He's all yours."

Sadao raised an eyebrow at Liadain's comment. He couldn't help but feel a ting of anger from it. The female inu goes up to Liadain and slaps her across the face. This alarms Sadao.

"Kumiko that was unnecessary!"

"Why are you defending her?"

"Why did you slap her?"

"I feel like she's more than a servant to you. You lowered your standards to a hanyou of all things."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm leaving Sadao-san. Maybe we'll talk again if I'm in a better mood." She leaves them as she continues to think about the hanyou.

Sadao looks at Liadain who is still holding her stinging cheek. He goes up to her but she moves away. He sighs aloud deciding to let her be. He watches Liadain leave him.

"Ahhh... females."

He just realizes it when he hears Liadain's stomach growl. She hasn't had anything to eat. Liadain is now back at Sadao's place cleaning, but she does this in an absent minded way.

"Yes, I figure my stay here will not be so great."

She feels Sadao coming close by but ignores him. He enters seeing her clean slowly. He hands her a knapsack filled with fruits and bread, but Liadain doesn't acknowledge it. He leaves it on the floor near her.

His hand rubs the back of his neck unsure how to make this up to her. "Liadain. Eat the damn food."

That said he leaves heading to where he was suppose to be this morning already running late.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I know I know lack of Sesshomaru... we're getting there no worries.**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Eeek gad! I haven't updated this thing in forever!

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

It has been a little more than a week of Liadain's servitude and she has been shooed away every night so far. "Not to worry _much_ my butt." It's early morning and she makes it to Sadao's place hoping that whatever female inu he brought over is gone by now.

Liadain was able to spend the night at Rin's place for that one week much to the preteens delight. The red head hasn't minded this inconvenience but since Rin is gone it has become a bother. Sesshomaru has not allowed anyone to vacant the girl's room. Liadain was unable to convince him otherwise. She even offered her servitude to him but he said he wanted nothing from her. She runs her claws through her hair as she feels there are two beings at the inu's house. She turns away deciding to go sightseeing in the meantime.

Liadain walks slowly looking up and admiring the cherry trees that are still in bloom. There have been many festivities in regards to the spring season. She notices very few youkais are outside. "I woke up at this hour for nothing." She says grumpily.

She rubs her eyes trying to keep awake. She didn't appreciate Sadao waking her up in the middle of last night to kick her out. She sits at the root of a nearby tree which looks very aged. Leaning her head against the trunk of it she looks up at shades of pink. Smiling a little she admires the blush color the flowers gave.

Her eyes slowly close and the next thing she knew she felt something grazing her face. She opens her eyes to see an unfamiliar inu youkai crouched near her. He holds out a twig that has cherry blossoms on it. She looks at him confused as to why this inu would offer her anything in the first place.

She straightens up sensing a fox youkai spirit possessing this inu. "Y-yukio-sama."

"Good. You've tapped into your youkai senses this time." He smirks.

"Why do you keep following me?" She stares at the inu feeling unsure how to talk to this possessed body.

"I need a favor from you." He said seriously.

"Oooh no. I'm not helping in whatever scheme you plan on doing."

"Do this for me Liadain. After all I died for you."

"You are cruel." Her voice fills with uncertain guilt. He pulls her up by the shoulders forcing her to stand.

"What- what are you planning?"

"It's simple. I just need your help in reviving me. Once I'm alive we can be together again."

"Yukio-sama I don't want to be with you or forced to."

"Liadain you are mine." His voice was full of assurance.

"I'm not yours! Gah! You have no claim over me! Remember?" She said furiously.

"I will soon enough." He smiles at her slight quirkiness as she rubs her face with both hands. She tries to calm down and avoid drawing attention towards them. Sighing aloud she stands there looking at him none too pleased.

"Looks like my time cuts short again. We will meet again Liadain." She sees the possessed body go stricken then falls forward as she catches him and she falls down because of the inu's weight. She tries to get up to get away, but she's caught by her arm as the inu quickly gains consciousness.

"Curse you Yukio-sama." She said under her breath. She already knew this inu would react similarly to the way Sadao did. She sees the inu tries to get up but falls back down again and let's go of her arm. She runs for it and looks around to see if there were any witnesses.

She rams into something solid knocking out her breath as she falls onto the ground. She coughs and looks up to see Sadao stand there with his arms crossed. His face remains emotionless for the moment. He holds out a helping hand as she unwillingly takes it.

"Follow me."

She nods in response and they briskly walk in silence for about thirty minutes. Sadao stops walking seeing they are far enough from keen ears. He looks at her irritated. "That fox spirit seems to fancy you."

"What?"

"Don't play dumb Liadain."

"Male foxes don't speak clearly and they like to mess with anyone's mind. At least in my experience. Whatever you saw... he was just goading me. Don't believe what you see." She sighs. "What does it matter to you anyway?"

"We will have to do something about that spirit." He said in a distant manner.

"Listen he's no real harm." She didn't exactly believe what she just said.

"Are you blind? It's clear this fox has something for you."

"No. Foxes are really good at trickery. I'm just a vessel for the species to survive."

"I can't have my servant robbed from me blindly." He looks at her in some concerned manner.

"You can easily replace me." She shrugs not understanding why he's being this way.

"But you do such a good job." He rubs his chin starting to think again.

"I'm a hanyou. Who really cares about me."

"By the way. If you weren't so daft with your senses you would have noticed the female this morning was heading out already."

She clenched her jaw at his slight insult. "Well I didn't want be around just in case. Does the word hanyou mean anything to you?" She feels annoyed and pitiful having to put herself down for these male youkais and full youkais in general.

Liadain rubs her lower back in discomfort. Sadao sees this, "What happened to you?" He said none too nicely.

She glares at him, "What's it to you?"

His lips thin out at her rudeness, "If you don't tell me I will have to examine it myself."

This puts her to give in reluctantly as he always finds a way for her to give in. She swears he's a fox in disguise. "It's nothing really."

"_Liadain._" He approaches her attempting to look at her lower back.

"Alright fine. I slept outside in the gardens on the floor that's why my back hurts."

"I thought you would have been with the girl?"

"She only stayed for one week. She's been gone since then."

"Why didn't you tell me?" He felt a little guilty for putting her in such a situation.

"I didn't think you'd care."

He huffs at her statement. "As a male I must take care of those who share my living quarters."

"Sure you do." She said this not believing him.

"Anyways, I need you to-"

"Yes I know. I will get right to it." She turns away from him with her hand on her lower back. Sadao who was annoyed with her interruptions tries not to stare and forces his eyes to look at the ground.

'I'm not affected by her. I'm not affected by her. She's just a damn hanyou.' He repeats this mentally to himself growing annoyed with himself.

Liadain is already at his place with her nose covered by a cloth. Last night's activity lingers in the air but is mostly gone. She has most of the sliding doors and windows open. Sadao steps into the house and sees that she has that cloth bound to her face like usual.

He laughs at her which she doesn't find any of this funny. She gets up from her crouching position carrying some clothes in one hand and the other rubs her lower back. He walks up behind her and she starts to turn around seeing what he wants. "Stay still."

She stands there unsure of what his intentions are and she turns her head back trying to see what he is doing. "Don't do that you'll hurt yourself." She felt her lower back pain intensify as he stated correctly.

"What are you doing?" She inquires slightly alarmed.

"Stand still." He says from behind her.

Liadain felt a slight graze from his claws making her stand there very stiff. "You must relax."

"That's difficult to do since I don't know what you're doing."

"Just trust me for right now."

He carefully places one hand where her pain occurs. The other hand moves away some of her hair putting it over her shoulder. Liadain feeling overly nervous wants to walk forward to increase the distance, but she knows this will only anger him.

He applies pressure to her sensitive spot and she grunts in pain. "Does it hurt anywhere else?" She quickly shakes her head no. He touches other parts of her back just to make sure. She concentrates on his steady breathing trying to ignore his fingers.

He starts to massage her lower back with one hand and the other holds her steady by the waist near her hips. She flinches against his hand movements in pain. She tries to pull away not liking where his hands are. "Stay still or else." After she's calmed down he couldn't help but look at her figure every so often as he has her so close to him. He closes his eyes for a moment and looks up at the ceiling trying to prevent a certain feeling from rising.

'I must enjoy torturing myself.' He thought in displeasure. This close temptation was starting to become straining on his male needs. Liadain felt one hand grip tighter on her, "That hurts! Your hand is hurting me."

He lessens the grip he has near her hips. Throughout this time he pulls whatever restraints to resist his hands from roaming her voluptuous body. Liadain stands there without a clue as to how Sadao is feeling. He couldn't take it any longer and lets her go. He walks out frustrated and he could hear Liadain's confused and distant thank you. He pushes it aside thinking she shouldn't thank him.

Liadain thinks about his strange attitude and concludes that he was probably running late again because of her. She carries the clothes outside to wash them. Nonetheless she was relieved that he's gone since she has plenty to do today.

"There. Finally!" Liadain said this with gladness as it was the last thing to do in the inu's house. She readjusts the pins that hold onto Sadao's clothes for drying. Hours have passed by and Liadain sits out in the back on the wooden floor. She watches a small bird chirping nearby as it follows the trail of seeds ending where her left hand holds the rest.

She sits absolutely still hoping that the little bird would stay a while with her. The bird hops every so often inching closer to the hanyou. Her eyes brighten as it makes contact within her hand. The bird finishes eating the rest of the seeds and flies away. The moment was short lived but she was satisfied.

Sadao arrives home by late afternoon. He senses the hanyou has located herself to the back of the house. As he walks to the backside he sees feet and as he gets closer he sniffs the air to sense if anything is wrong. He makes it outside and looks to the right to see Liadain lying on her stomach with one arm stretched out. He sees a small pile of seeds in her hands. A thought occurs to him that he just couldn't pass it up. That plump, round rear that he's gazing at right now is in need of a harsh touch. He crouches down near her. Smack!

"YAHH! Oh my god- WHAT-"

Immediately as she stands up startled she then hears that familiar deep laugh. As she rubs her stinging butt she turns around to see him rolling with laughter as she walks furiously up to him and slaps him soundly in the face. Bird seeds stick to his cheek but quickly fall off from his now scowling face. He goes from glaring at her to laughing at her again.

She continues to walk away holding her pained bottom. She goes to the front of the house where her sandals are located. Once they were on she moves goes forward without a second thought as she could still hear his laughter. This time she was more than angry she felt slightly hurt by his rude actions.

She goes to the gardens finding a different spot to sleep tonight. She stays near blue and purple hydrangea's as she sits there in thought reminding herself why she took his offer in the first place.

"Liadain." It doesn't seem like she can stay away from the fox species altogether. She sighs aloud sensing its Yukio-sama.

"My answer is no."

"You should really reconsider." His voice sounded threatening as he barely touches her hair. Her hands quickly gather her hair taking it away from his hand.

"Go find another one."

In the corner of her eye she sees the possessed body sit next to her. Though he doesn't sit there for long, he grabs her arm lifting her up to stand and pulls her along. "Where are you taking me?"

He doesn't answer but stops to pick her up in his arms and sprints off which turns into a run. Liadain figures this wasn't good so she starts thrashing within the borrowed body's arms. He contains her still without much effort. She sensed the incoming familiar aura. 'Great. I don't even want to see that dog's face right now!'

She was wishing for someone else to come to her rescue. "This scholar's body isn't fast enough." Yukio complained knowing this run may end soon.

-oo-o-o-o-

AN: very short I know….


	8. Chapter 8

Previously: Mishaps happen to Liadain as she goes off to be away from Sadao. Yukio-sama possesses an inu body then captures Liadain and so the chase begins.

Yukio-sama runs with Liadain who he tightly holds in his arms. This run was not going to last as the inu was closing in very fast. Yukio chose the wrong body to possess.

Lidain looks up at his face. Her fist flies straight to the mouth. That did little damage; this only provokes Yukio to squeeze her body painfully. "Be still!" He growls at her. She aims to bite his face but jerks her face away from him. He growls at her again then quickly looks behind him to see that infernal dog after them. Yukio gains speed, "Curses to this inu!"

Liadain can feel the presence behind them catch up. Yukio suddenly finds his face to the ground rubbing against the grit. Unable to see his attacker he thrashes against the unknown. Liadain, surprised by the impact, scrapes against the ground and it takes her a second to realize she's free from Yukio-sama's arms.

She wastes no time and scrambles up for a run as her body energizes with adrenaline. Liadain has no clue where she is running to but she feels she must keep going forward. _'I'm free!'_ She feels the ground shake and hears a resounding cry of pain and another of anger. She could feel Yukio's energy fade away. _'I hope he passes away peacefully to the other side.'_

She breaths in and out unevenly and continues running. _'Where do I go?'_ She feels an aura behind her aiming in her direction. The feeling increases and does not waver.

Picking up the momentum, Liadain runs straight ahead into the forest for safe haven. She maneuvers around the trees never slowing down.

"Liadaaaaiiiin!" Her name echoes in the distance making her skin crawl. This only motivates her to run faster.

"LiiaadAAAIIIIN!" Faster she goes. As she barely scrapes by the tree trunks of the dense forest, she continues this speed for a long while. Her mind is empty from all thoughts and concentrates on the run with all her might.

By the time the sun hits the highest point Liadain slows down immensely. She has not had a proper meal since the early morning. "Keep going. I must keep going!" She pushes herself and gains that second wind.

Meanwhile, in the depths of the forest Sadao is pacing angrily. "She will not escape! That sly fox… who told her she had permission." He pulls out his sword and slays a few trees down as he tries to cool down.

Sadao breathes in deeply feeling a little better. He stands there pondering why he didn't quite understand it, but he didn't want to see through the broken contract. He didn't want to release her to the foxes.

That was the truth and it was a difficult truth for him to swallow. He breathes in deeply again only catching the faint sweet smell of the retched hanyou. He tries to convince himself that she continued running out of fear because of that fox. He shakes his head at the foolish thought and scolds himself for such weakness.

"Fear can be a good motivator." Startled by that voice Sadao turns around to see Lord Sesshomaru and quickly bows to him. Sadao mentally questions what could Lord Sesshomaru possibly know about fear.

"Rise" Was Sesshomaru's commanding voice.

"I apologize my lord. My servant has escaped and I was on the way to return her. If you allow me sire…" Sadao looks at Sesshomaru for his approval.

Sesshomaru silently stares at Sadao with his usual emotionless face. "Sadao. You are one of my top in the militia and do a great service."

Sadao grimaced inside knowing where this might lead. "Sir I-"

Sesshomaru holds up one hand and Sadao is silent. "I will retrieve her, Sadao."

Sadao's mouth drops from the offer. His mind goes into overdrive thinking why his sire would bother with such a trivial matter. "Sir, that won't be necessary. Please, no need to waste your ti-"

"Silence Sadao. I am doing this because I feel you are incapable. The hanyou will not take you seriously."

Sadao could not feel more perturbed by his declaration. "If I may, I would like to request that you do not kill her." Sadao knew that because of the hanyou there had been some disruptions and he had this sinking feeling that Lord Sesshomaru will punish her. He couldn't stop the powerful youkai if he tried.

Sadao watches Sesshomaru disappears without a response. Sadao does his best not show how much the daiyoukai's silence bothered him. What bothered him more was the mystery behind the daiyoukia's intent on bringing back to hanyou personally. He sighs exasperatedly.

Liadian is slowly walking with a map in hand and some food to restore her energy. "I'm so close by!" She couldn't feel more relieved than anything else in her life at the moment. Though she fears for how long she can stay this way. She tucks the map away and makes another long run to her destination.

She delights in the wind that surrounds her body. Creatures in her pathway scramble to get away from the income except for one. She's startled to see it's a wolf demon beside her. She picks up her speed times two.

She feels that this does the trick as the demon starts to fall behind. He doesn't let up and throws a retractable chain at her feet. She slams against the ground ungracefully. Liadain groans from the pain.

The male chuckles, "Enough of this already." He comes close to her and grabs a fistful of her hair to see her face. He levels his face with hers and sniffs in her scent. Liadain tries to swipe at his face with her claws but he's quicker. He yanks her head back. "What's your name halfbreed? You have more youkai in you but you're still a halfbreed." This is true since Liadain's mother wasn't completely human.

Liadain silently stares at him breathing in a panic. She sees how blue his eyes are. Her eyes avert from his and look to the ground. "What are ya deaf? I asked for your name."

He yanks her hair harder earning a yelp from her. Liadain seethes at him, "If I do. Will you let me go?"

He gives her a toothy grin. "Well that depends."

"On what?" She speaks through gritted teeth.

"If you don't have a plan of attack."

Liadain nods. "I just want to get to my destination in peace."

He watches her face to see if she was lying or have any tricks up her sleeves.

"The names Liadain." The wolf grins and let's go of her hair. He watches Liadain scoot back away from him and stand without bothering to fix her hair.

"Nice to meetcha' Liadain. The names Kouga. What's a mutt doing out here alone?"

Liadain frowned at the mention of what runs through her blood. She stays quiet lost in her thought how every living creature is wrong to judge her based on blood. Kouga stands there looking at her entirety.

"What!" Liadain shouts at him suddenly realizing what he was doing. Kouga simply smirks at her.

"So? What are you doing out here all alone?" Kouga asks again with a serious face.

Liadain crosses her arms over her chest muttering how all males are the same with their lecherous minds. She couldn't ever recall gaining this much attention about her appearance. 'Doesn't matter. I'm a hanyou that nobody really cares for and I've given up on finding love a long time ago…'

"Ahem."

She looks up at the wolf. "What was your question again?"

Kouga sighs, "Are you usually like this? Off into your own little world."

Liadain shakes her head no. "You could say I'm running away."

Kouga quickly grabs her arm and looks at her suspiciously. "From who? Are you worth something?" He sniffs her again and recognizes the scent of inus. She struggles from his firm grip and successfully gets away from his hands.

"Look at me. I'm a mutt as you say. I'm worth dirt!" She looks at Kouga angrily.

"Hold on a sec-"

"Koouuuugggaa!" Both wolf and fox turn to the direction of the new voice.

"Shit!" Kouga hears the female voice. He quickly lets go of the hanyou and runs off.

"Come back here mangy wolf!" That voice again. Liadain sees a flash of red hair pass by her. She simply stood there and blinked unsure what to make of what had just occurred. With a shrug of her shoulders, she continues her journey.

Hours later, Liadain finally arrives at familiar gate and sees a familiar face. Her heart swells it could burst for all she cared. She runs up to the familiar.

"Taka! Hey Taka!" She waves an arm and within seconds is suddenly very close to his face.

"Hey fox lady! Where have you been?" His dark eyes are wide with surprise and gladness. He observes how ruffled she looks and tired. She looks mostly exhausted.

"That's such a long story I don't even want to start." Liadain smiles so wide her cheek muscles start to hurt.

"Well hey your timing couldn't be more than the fate of the gods. Emi just finished her wedding ceremony. I think the reception is still going on as we speak."

Liadain's eyes widen. She runs inside with a rushed thanks to Taka. She sniffs out the scent of Emi and runs to the direction of her house. She bursts inside the house and sees that she startled two humans who were enjoying tea quietly.

Liadain recognizes Emi and her newly betrothed. Her heart pounds rapidly with joy.

Emi stands there in fear but after a few seconds realize whom she is seeing. Her vision begins to blur. She rushes to the fox, and tightly holds her with all the human strength she possesses. Emi cries in the fox's shoulder and shakes.

Liadain returns Emi's embrace with equal enthusiasm and stay this way for a while.

"I still cannot believe it's you!" Emi says.

Liadain sips her tea and puts it down with newfound delicacy. She smiles for what felt like the thousandth time today at her beloved human friend.

She gives a slight chuckle to Emi. "What I can't believe is my missed timing to see you married off to your new husband."

Liadain slams her fist on the table shocking the couple that sits on the opposite side of it. "You better take good care of Emi or else!"

"H-heh! No need to worry. I'll keep Emi safe and give her all that she needs." The husband rubs that back of his neck nervously.

Satisfied with that answer, she turns her attention back to Emi. "Better late than never Liadain. And this couldn't be truer than right now."

Liadain sighs. "What's wrong Liadain?"

"Besides missing the ceremony I don't think I'll last long enough here to see your kids."

Emi sharply inhales. "What foolish thoughts brought this on now? Didn't that fox youkai allow you to come here freely? I tried finding out where you were stationed and sent you an invitation."

Liadain perks up a little at this revelation. "I never received anything. Also, it might have been sent to the wrong place and Yukio wouldn't let me out of his sight."

"So then how are you here? Alive?" Emi's husband spoke.

Liadain tells her tale and claiming that by sheer luck she is alive and sitting in front of the two.

"I knew that fox youkai was no good with impure intentions for you. And that prince fox sounds like a real jerk." Liadain nods.

"Although, this Sadao sounds like he likes you more than a slave. Maybe his attraction to you is only physical right now. But I bet if you gave him a chance-" Emi says while in deep thought.

Liadain could not believe the absurdity that just shot through her hears. "You're reading way too much into that. And how could you suggest such a thing!"

"No. Liadain quit thinking you're ugly!"

Liadain scoffs. "I never said that!"

"But you were thinking it!" Emi accuses.

Emi's husband simply watches as the two continue to argue. He thought it was comical of course. However, his mind wanders to the earlier mention of Lord Sesshomaru in Liadain's tale. Liadain escaped the powerful youkai's territory. He couldn't help but think the inu youkai was not out of the picture yet.

"Ahem."

Emi's husband sees that didn't stop their argument. "Ladies!"

They both stop to look at him. "Yes darling Kado?" Emi responds sweetly.

"Emi, honey. Shouldn't Liadain have a plan of defense? You know against this Lord Sesshomaru."

"Oh well-"

"Why is this daiyoukai a concern? I'm a hanyou that holds no value to him. Only to the fox tribes am I worth something."

"Maybe so but you need still be very cautious. If he is as powerful as you claim then he has probably caught up to you already and is watching you."

Those words made Liadain's body shiver in fear and uncertainty. She doesn't feel any auras. She recalls rumors of powerful youkai's masking their auras. "I-I doubt that he would waste his time."

Emi frowns at how fatigued Liadain appears to be. "I think we should all get some rest tonight. Today has been very eventful. And the best wedding gift so far is having you back Liadain."

The fox smiles kindly towards her. "You." She refers to the husband. "You're very fortunate to have my friend as your wife."

The man simply smiles at Emi. "No worries fox. She is my everything." He reaches for Emi's hand delicately causing his wife to blush even more. Liadain watches this display of adoration. She mentally sighs envying her friend and turns her head away from the scene.

"Okay you lovebirds. I'll leave you both alone since it's the first night together." She starts to stand up to make her way out.

"W-wait. Where are you going?"

"I'll probably go spend the night at Takas."

Emi goes after her friend. "No! This is your house. We were only here because I was missing you and I wanted to be surrounding by your things."

Those words touched her heart. "But you two won't have anywhere else to go."

"That's not true Liadain. Tell her honey." Emi looks at her husband.

"It's true. We have our own place. She just wanted to revisit a few memories of you."

"Oh. Well in that case I can walk you two to your house. It would be nice to see it." She tries smiling reassuringly.

"But you look so tired. And you're a lady. A man should be walking you to your home." Emi couldn't help but fret over her friend.

Liadain shakes her head. "Don't be silly. Come on lets go already."

Emi sighs knowing her friend would not change her mind. "Okay."

All three walk to the couples' house making light conversation along the way.

"We are here." Emi says enthusiastically.

Liadain smiles. "Your home looks wonderful. I think you two have a lovely garden as well."

All three step inside and the couple give Liadain a tour of their house. "Well that's all of the house. You sure you don't want to stay over? I can cook you some food."

She shakes her head. She was worried and didn't want to bring trouble to the couple. "I still have food from my travels. I really just want to go back home."

"Okay. Good night Liadain."

"Good night you two."

The fox and the human held each other in a tight embrace not wanting to let go until Kado gently broke them apart.

"We shall visit you at your place first thing in the morning." The husband said.

Liadain nods and walks away from the house. She keeps looking back at them. She tries to burn the scene in her memory. Overcome with emotions she looks straight ahead and runs back home.

The night sky shone brightly with stars and the bright moon. Liadain tries to have positive thoughts for a change. She tries to think about that she will get home safely, sleep peacefully, and see Emi first thing tomorrow.

She now stands in front of her home and inhales the familiar scents. Her clawed hand slides the door softly. She lightly steps into her home with eyes downcast. She sighs from exhaustion and looks up.

The sound of a sharp gasp is the only sound in the night. Her skin prickles at the sight of the being standing there. Golden eyes narrow sharply at the fear stricken fox. He slowly walks forward.

AN: Any continued readers? Crickets in the background.


End file.
